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SERMONS 



BY 



HOWARD CROSBY. 



NOV 14 K , y . 



NEW YORK: 
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & CO. 



THE LIBRARY 
OW C ONGR ESS 

WASHINGTON 



.C7S4 



Copyright, 1891, by 
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY. 



EDWARD O. JENKINS' SON, 

Printer \ Stereotyper, and Electrotyper, 
20 North William St., New York. 



SUBJECTS 



PAGE 



Christ Praying for Us, ..... 7 

Christ's Faithfulness, . .' . . . .17 

Christ's Claims, 27 

Christ the Rainbow, 38 

For Christ's Sake, 49 

Sitting at the Feet of Jesus, . . . .59- 

Bible Meditation, 70 

The Life of Prayer, 80 

Giving, 91 

Sabbath-Keeping, 102 

The Christian's Attitude in a Wicked City, . Ill 

Desire for Death, 132 

The Lord's Supper, 142 

Connection between Sin and Judgment, . .152 

The Philosophy of Temptation, . . . 163 

The Precious Blood, 173 

Grace, 183 

Man's Original Sonship, 194 

God's Walk with Us, 205 

Transfiguration, 215 

Resurrection, . . . . . .226 

Obedience to God's Law, 237 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE. 



The Sermons in this volume were selected from 
those preached by Dr. Crosby in the course of 
his regular ministrations at the Fourth Avenue 
Presbyterian Church, New York. They are printed 
from the rapidly- written original manuscripts, and 
required neither verbal correction nor revision to 
adapt them for publication. 

October, 1891. 



CHEIST PEAYING FOE US. 
Luke xxii. 32 : "I have prayed foe thee, that thy faith 

FALL NOT." 

Peter means "Eock," and it was the name the 
Lord gave to Simon, the fisherman. But he was any- 
thing but a rock. His impetuosity was the cause of 
his being as unstable as water. Jesus called him Satan 
for daring to disapprove of the great sacrifice for sin 
and attempting to correct the Master. On the mount 
of transfiguration, where he wist not what to say, he 
talked nonsense. He endeavored to find a numerical 
standard for forgiveness. He grandly paraded his 
confidence by leaping out of the boat to walk on the 
water, and then began to cry out that he was sinking. 
He boasted of his readiness to die for Jesus, and then 
in his dastardly fear denied Him three times. He 
taught that Gentiles were on a level with Jews in the 
church, and when he came to Antioch, ate with 
them, but when some Jews from Jerusalem arrived, 
he through fear of them separated himself from the 
Gentiles. 

Surely there was very little of the rock in this 
vacillating Peter. Then why did our Lord give him 
the name ? I think it was to mark not what he was, 

(7) 



8 CHRIST PRAYING FOR US. 

but what divine grace would make him to be. The 
name was given to the most unstable and erratic of 
all the apostles to show that it is not man's disposition, 
but the divine indwelling, which is to be noted as the 
chief factor in the new life. The grace of God can 
change the character, — the lion can become a lamb, 
the shaking reed can become a rock. When Peter 
wrote his epistles, we see only the firm, bold, perma- 
nent qualities of the rock, strong yet modest, undis- 
turbed by bufferings and yet free from self-assertion. 

While he was under our Lord's personal training, 
he was constantly asserting himself. His boldness 
was self-confidence. He felt strong enough to do 
anything he proposed. He was like many men we 
see nowadays, who feel like omnipotence in min- 
iature. They don't mind trifles, and everything is a 
trifle that does not concern them. They are ready 
to direct anything that comes in their way, whether 
a church, a dry-goods store, or the general govern- 
ment. They'll give advice gratis to an expert, and 
hasten to teach a veteran. They will cover up their 
failures by making a dash at something else, and 
keeping a serene brow of assurance, as if nothing had 
happened. These men need a great deal of " snub- 
bing." Slight hints are of no avail. Strong blows, 
very strong blows, are all that can do them any good. 
Christian men of this self -poised, impetuous sort little 
think or know that this habit of theirs is antagonistic 
to a true faith. It is self-assertion and not Christ- 
assertion. There is good material in them, but they 
are using it in a very wrong way. They need to be 



CHRIST PRAYING FOR US. 9 

"converted," not in the sense that we ordinarily use 
the word, but in the sense in which Jesus uses it in 
our context. He says to Peter, " I have prayed for 
thee, that thy faith fail not : and when thou art con- 
verted, strengthen thy brethren." Peter was certainly 
a converted man, in our ordinary sense of that word. 
He loved his Saviour. He saw in Him the Messiah of 
Israel. He was honest and sincere in his faith. But 
with all that, he was very destitute of humility, and 
hence he was a very weak Christian, though a very 
demonstrative one. Oh, how many good Peters there 
are in the Church that need to be converted ! They are 
ships that carry a great cloud of canvas, but have no 
rudder. They are always dashing forward, but the 
direction is not of much consequence. 

Now it was just such a Peter that Jesus was going 
to make into a firm, calm, wise, judicious apostle, to 
whom the name of Rock would be appropriate. I 
have said that impetuosity and self-assertion hinder 
faith, and hence our Lord prayed that Peter's faith 
should not fail. There was his danger. Faith grows 
in the soil of humility. The less of humility, the 
weaker the faith. Peter was losing his faith. He 
showed that by his threefold denial. But Christ's 
prayer saved him. Christ's prayer can never be in 
vain. He prayed for Peter's faith, and Peter's faith 
was saved, but oh, through what bitter experiences ! 
When we allow ourselves to go astray, the coming 
back, so necessary, must be through the fire. 

I have noted this incident in our Lord's life and 
Peter's experience, however, not for the purpose of 



10 CHRIST PRAYING FOR US. 

dwelling on the character of Peter, but of marking the 
inspiring truth that our Saviour prays for us. It 
is a strange, a wonderful thought, that the Eter- 
nal "Word, with God and God, prays for us poor, 
weak creatures. Do we realize this ? Do we receive 
the comfort that comes from this truth ? Have we 
ever pondered on what is implied by this fact \ Ah ! 
it is one of " the deep things of God " that we so 
often neglect to our own injury and loss. 

Let us now consider it, and may God reveal its 
power in us. 

1. God has in Jesus Christ identified Himself with 
our race. He is not a God afar off. He is Immanuel, 
God with us. "We have nothing to do with the phi- 
losophers' objection that God is too great to regard 
the little mites on this little earth. We do not meas- 
ure God by material spaces and sizes. God is a Spirit 
and He pervades the spiritual world, and that spirit- 
ual world has no connection whatever with material 
measurements. A human heart within a human body 
that is materially an imperceptible speck in the ma- 
terial universe, is of more consequence in the spirit- 
ual world than ten thousand solar systems. When 
unenclosed in the flesh and having its spiritual body 
the soul of man will not be thought of as a mite upon 
this little earth. Man is but a little lower than the 
angels and crowned with glory and honor, as he ap- 
pears to God's eye, when he is renewed in spirit and 
redeemed from sin. God identified Himself with our 
race in order that this glorious consummation might 
be reached. The dreams, the longings, the adapta- 



CHRIST PRAYING FOR US. H 

tions of the soul have their fulfilment in this. Man 
is out and away from his normal destiny when in sin. 
The race lieth in wickedness, and is blind to its po- 
tential glory and would extinguish it. It is the Gospel 
that would open man's blind eyes and show him how 
glorious manhood is as God would have it and as He 
will make it in Christ, if only man consent. The 
grand token of this is in God's coming into our race. 
" The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and 
we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten 
of the Father." Jesus Christ, God blessed forever, 
became the son of Mary, and He calls us brethren. 
Let us rise to the meaning of all this. Let us not treat 
it as an abstraction, as a dry proposition in Euclid. 
It is a great fact, full of vitality, and belongs to your 
heart and mine. God is with us ; God dwells among 
us. " God is nigh unto all that call on Him." " I 
will fear no evil, for God is with me." " God is at 
my right hand. I shall not be moved." These are 
expressions of a glowing, living truth. Jesus Christ 
came to make this truth more palpable. What does 
John say ? " That which we have seen with our eyes, 
which we have looked upon and our hands have 
handled of the Word of life — declare we unto you 
that ye also may have fellowship with us, and truly 
our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son 
Jesus Christ" (1 John i. 1, 3). Let us, then, have 
no more a God afar off, but know Him as Immanuel, 
God with us, at every step of our earthly journey, at 
every moment of our earthly life. But now : 

2. This identification of God with our race has "been 



12 CHRIST PRAYING FOR US. 

so perfect that God as man prays for us. How is 
this ? God pray to God ? What confusion of thought 
is this ? It is just the confusion that belongs to all 
connections between the finite and infinite — the con- 
fusion that appertains to the mystery of the Divine 
working in and with the human soul. But the con- 
fusion and mystery in no way alter the fact or di- 
minish the comfort of the truth. The manhood of 
Jesus Christ was as real as His Godhood. It was no 
appearance merely, nor was it a half-manhood. It 
was a manhood entire, nothing less and nothing more, 
in the day of His humiliation. That manhood, when 
the day of humiliation was over, did not perish. 
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for- 
ever. In the fulness of His Godhood that manhood 
still exists and in it He is our brother overflowing 
with love and sympathy for us. And one of the 
spontaneous functions of that love and sympathy is 
prayer in our behalf. We know how the incense of 
the golden altar was offered with the prayers of the 
saints. That incense betokened Christ's prayer which 
made the prayers of the saints efficacious. Wherever 
the soul rests on Him, He stands by it and prays 
with it. He identifies Himself with the praying 
saint, and it is for that reason, and that reason only, 
that prayer is efficacious. And as Jesus prays with 
the saint, He prays for the saint. The same love 
and sympathy are back of one as of the other. He 
has obtained the salvation. He will carry it to per- 
fection. In the mysterious Trinity of God prayer 
has part, and the Son of God is ever praying for His 



CHRIST PRAYING FOR US. 13 

own redeemed ones, until they are like Himself. We 
see another instance of the same mysterious truth, 
when the Holy Spirit is described (Kom. viii. 27) as 
making intercession for the saints according to God. 
There is a movement of love in the Trinity of God 
in behalf of every believer, and one element of that 
movement is prayer. Our humanity is thus repre- 
sented in God and by God, and the whole efficiency 
of our earthly aspirations and efforts is in this heav- 
enly activity that accompanies them. Herein is the 
vast difference between the believer and the unbe- 
liever. The believer's life is hid with Christ in God. 
His citizenship is in heaven. This means far more 
than the fact that he thinks of Christ and heaven, or 
that he has faith in Christ and expects to go to heaven. 
It means that now his life is going on in heaven, as 
upborne by Christ, his brother and representative, a 
life all hidden from the world's eye or ken, but as real as 
his life on earth. There in that life above is his soul 
being perfected, as Christ prays for him that his faith 
fail not. For this : 

3. Is the object of our LoroVs prayer for us that 
our faith may not fail, and herein is the assurance 
that no saint of God shall perish. No one shall pluck 
His sheep out of His hand. We call this the perse- 
verance of the saints. It is really the perseverance 
of Christ. Peter was not an exceptional case. Jesus 
does not show partiality in His relations to His own. 
He prayed that Peter's faith should not fail, and so 
He prays for you and me that our faith shall not fail, 
and His prayer is a prophecy. He may let our faith 



14 CHRIST PRAYING FOR US. 

be tempted and tried ; He may let our faith waver 
and tremble; but He will never let it fail. The 
tempting and trying, the wavering and trembling, 
may be necessary for our discipline and growth, but 
the failing would be the obstruction of His own work, 
the failure of the atoning blood and quickening Spirit. 
Be sure, my Christian brother, my Christian sister, 
your faith shall never fail, because Christ is praying 
for you. But let not this unduly exalt you or put 
you off your guard, for this assurance was given to 
Peter and his faith was secure ; but see through what 
a depth of wretched experience he dragged his faith 
after these words of encouragement were given him. 
Christ's praying for you secures your ultimate tri- 
umph, but it does not secure you from fearful falls 
and painful bruises, because for the avoidance of these 
Christ does not pray, as they may be necessary to you 
under the circumstances of your soul. These words 
of Christ, that He is praying for us, ought to make 
us the more watchful that we seem not to resist such 
prayer. Our joy at being thus cared for in the inner 
pavilion of the Most High should exalt our affections, 
and so lift us above the follies that tempt the lower 
life. And it will have that effect, if we really take 
in the great truth to our hearts. No true contempla- 
tion of Christ's interest in us will put us off our guard, 
but will have the directly opposite effect of keeping 
us jealous for His glory and for our own response of 
love for love. Is Jesus praying for me ? Oh, what 
love that is ! and love, too, in heaven ! and love in 
the very dwelling-place of God! — and for me! 



CHRIST PRAYING FOR US. 15 

Surely my whole heart must be His now and for- 
ever ! 

Our Lord followed His declaration to Peter by the 
injunction, "When thou art converted, strengthen 
thy brethren." 

Peter's conversion, as here intended, was when he 
understood what the Lord meant by His praying for 
him. It was after the bitter weeping. He was then 
to strengthen the brethren. When the soul is sens- 
ible of its full union with Christ, and so walks daily 
with Him, it has a power that is divine. That power 
is to be exercised upon those that still abide on the 
lower plane, where so much of legalism and its fears 
and tears are found. These brethren are to be strength- 
ened. They are now weak, because they do not ap- 
preciate Christ as they ought. They love Him and 
serve Him, but they know only a little of His pre- 
ciousness. Hence they do not receive all His gifts. 
They have gone to Him for a few things and have 
gotten them, but they have not gone to Him for all 
things. They have very little idea what a divine 
Saviour praying for them is. So they often walk in 
thick darkness, while He is Light. They hesitate and 
are in doubt, while He is the Way and the Truth. 
They grow cold and half-dead, while He is the Life. 
These brethren need strengthening, for they are very 
weak. And the agent to strengthen them that the 
Lord appoints is the soul that has been converted from 
this very state into the appreciation of Christ's fulness. 
The converted Peter is to strengthen the brethren. 
And it will be his delight to do so. He will want 



16 CHRIST PRAYING FOR US. 

others to see what a Saviour we have — and to reach 
those blissful experiences which a close union with 
Jesus implies. What a grand ministry this is ! For 
one of us, exalted by the divine grace to this beatific 
view of our dear Lord, to lead others to the heights of 
the delectable mountains, that they may rejoice with 
us in the enchantment of the holy station ! 

Brethren, we have every encouragement to seek 
this situation, where we can exercise this ministry. 
We have the unsatisfactory condition of a halting 
faith to make us ashamed of it and disgusted with it, 
and we have the blessings of the triumphant faith to 
allure us upward, and above all we have Jesus him- 
self praying for us that our faith fail not. Be sure 
that if He prays for the final triumph of our faith, 
He will gladly help our efforts to gain new heights 
of faith now. If we neglect effort, He may see it 
best to let us stumble and harm ourselves as did 
Peter ; but if we put forth effort, He surely will make 
our effort successful, and give us a great deal of 
heaven here. 



THE FAITHFULNESS OF CHEIST. 

2 Timothy ii. 13 : " If we believe not, yet He abedeth 

FAITHFUL." 

This is probably part of an early church-hymn begin- 
ning at ver. 11 : " This is a faithful saying " — (a saying 
used in the church as a formula of faith). — " For if 
we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him ; if 
we suffer, we shall also reign with Him ; if we deny 
Him, He will deny us ; if we believe not, yet He abid- 
eth faithful." It describes the relation of the Chris- 
tian to Christ, dead and living, suffering and reigning 
with Him, and denied by Him in His faithfulness. 
The former part of the hymn touches the very root 
of salvation. We die with Christ to sin and live with 
Him to righteousness ; that is, we are so identified 
with Christ in His expiation for sin, that our sin is re- 
moved by that expiation, and we are so identified with 
Christ in His eternal life that we live in Him by the 
indwelling of the Holy Spirit. So we can bear what- 
ever of suffering we are called upon to bear here in 
our short earthly lifetime, because a seat with Christ 
upon His eternal throne is awaiting us. Such is the 
former part of the hymn, touching (as I said) the very 
root of our salvation. The rest of the hymn is a con- 
trast to that. It exhibits our inconsistencies here and 

(17) 



18 THE FAITHFULNESS OF CHRKT. 

the treatment we have to receive because of these 
inconsistencies. Though heirs of the incorruptible 
crown, we often forget our position and yield to the 
adverse influence of our earthly surroundings. This 
would seem to cancel all that we had hoped for in 
Christ, and so it would, if salvation were of man and 
not of God. But the divine work is not to be baffled, 
and grace will triumph over sin in the heart of God's 
child, even though it be by bitter conflict and fearful 
pangs. 

Let us note, in considering this text and subject : 
1 . The believer believes not. When a child of God 
is wandering, it is because of unbelief. The believer 
believes not. He is a believer, for he has placed his 
confidence in his Lord. Yet he believes not, for he 
has now left his Lord in order to engage in some 
folly. He has let go the guiding hand, and turned 
his thought to some fancy that has lured him into a 
by-path. Is Christ no longer his Saviour? Is the 
covenant mercy clean gone? Certainly not. It is 
the believer's conduct we are considering, not Christ's. 
It is the believer that has wandered and soiled his 
garments in the world's dust and mire. An ordinary 
judge would say, " Then he is no longer a Christian." 
If such a judge had heard Peter, on the night before 
the crucifixion, three times deny his Lord, once with 
the strong oath of asseveration, he certainly would 
have written him down an enemy to the truth and a 
lost soul. "Would his judgment have been correct ? 
Was it not the same Peter whom Jesus had placed 
at the very head of the apostolic college ? Was it 



THE FAITHFULNESS OF CHRIST. 19 

not the same Peter of whose inspired and heartfelt 
utterance of homage our Lord had said, " Blessed art 
thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not 
revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in 
heaven " ? And yet here he was, vigorously denying 
the Lord who had thus blessed him. Can a man be 
a Christian one day and no Christian the next day % 
Is the Christ-life in a soul so slight and evanescent % 
Can it come and go, or go and come like a breeze 
or a phantom % We learn differently from the Word 
of God. We learn there that the work in the heart of 
the believer is a divine work, that the Spirit is its author 
and that He who has begun a good work in the earth 
will perfect it. We learn there that salvation is not 
a contract or bargain, in which God says, " If you keep 
your part, I'll keep mine." That was the style of the 
law-covenant, which man could not keep. But the 
style of the Gospel-covenant is widely different. It is 
thus portrayed by Jeremiah, " I will put my law in 
their inward parts and write it in their hearts." Eze- 
kiel puts it this way, " I will put a new spirit within 
you. I will take the stony heart out of their flesh and 
will give them a heart of flesh." And it is of this 
difference between the law-covenant and the Gospel- 
covenant that the apostle speaks when he says (Gal. iii.), 
that the law was added for the sake of transgressions 
(that is to show clearly how sinful man was), and that it 
had a mediator (i. e., Moses) to stand between God and 
man, the two parties, — but the Gospel required no such 
mediator, for God, as one, was Law-giver, Mediator, 
and all, in giving the blessed promise to faith. 



20 THE FAITHFULNESS OF CHRIST. 

We cannot too strongly impress this great funda- 
mental truth that our salvation is entirely God's work 
and not ours, for nearly all the heresies in the Church 
arise from some departure from this truth. Chris- 
tians think of doing their part toward salvation, (to 
use a plain phrase) of holding up their end, and 
from this notion come the penances, the self-imposed 
self-denials, the perfunctory works, the expiatory alms- 
givings, the conventional fasts, as if all these put 
together and all the good deeds that could be done 
had the slightest value as to salvation. None of these 
things have any value, except as results of salvation. 
If they are honest, and not perfunctory, then they 
are the fruits of salvation, but never, never are they 
the roots. The root of salvation is God's sovereign 
grace, which our simple faith accepts humbly and 
gratefully. That is the whole of it. Anything else 
added is false. Now when that grace is once accepted, 
think you that it is going to depend on our works for 
its maintenance? Did it depend on our works to 
come and save us ? Why, then, should it depend on 
our works to continue its gracious purpose ? But do 
you say, " Oh, then, let us go on sinning — God will 
save us, anyhow " ? The apostle met just that objec- 
tion in his Epistle to the Romans, and he showed 
that the soul which had received Christ by faith had 
died to sin with Christ and was no longer under con- 
demnation, its sins being expiated by the Christ-death 
in which it had a share, and that it had thus risen 
with Christ and had a new life which (however much 
sin still clung to it as barnacles to a ship) was a life 



THE FAITHFULNESS OF CHRIST. 21 

that was Christly in its essential elements. The apos- 
tle also said in answer to the objection, that the con- 
verted heart was no longer a slave to sin, but a slave 
to Christ and righteousness, and could find its appro- 
priate work only in serving Him. It is the worldly 
heart only that could say, " Let us go on sinning." 
Such a proposition would prove that it had not died 
and risen with Christ. Peter denied Christ, but Peter 
would never have said, " Let us go on sinning." No ! 
this antinomian objection is of the carnal heart and 
not of the renewed heart. The doctrine of God's 
sole work in salvation does not lead to any antinomian 
thought or act in the believer. 

So we come back to our position — the child of God 
is always a child of God. And yet it can be said 
of him, " The believer believes not." How is this ? 
It is in the temporary eclipse of his faith. His 
strength fails ; he totters ; he falls ; he is bruised ; 
he is bemired ; he is dishonored ; he is disgraced ; 
but he is not lost. He has become a denying Peter. 
It is a sad sight — a fearfully sad sight. Angels would 
weep over it, if angels could weep. To see a child 
of God feeding the swine and eating their food far 
from his Father's house sickens the heart. What a 
dismal clouding of the spiritual intelligence is here ! 
"What a strange forgetfulness of God's grace ! But 
is that grace cancelled by the child's folly % Is God's 
purpose thwarted by the silly heart % No, a thousand 
times no ! " If we believe not, yet He abideth faith- 
ful." If we, the children of God, allow our faithful- 
ness to waver and sink down, the faithfulness of our 



22 THE FAITHFULNESS OF CHKIST. 

Saviour will not fail. He cannot desert His own 
work. If He did, no one could be saved. For the 
weakness of the believer is very great, and if it were 
not for a divine Saviour to raise him up, he would 
fall to rise no more. No, it is our rejoicing that our 
Lord and Saviour abideth faithful. 

2. This is our second point — The abiding faith- 
fulness of Christ. His words are, " Neither shall 
any pluck them out of my hand " (John x. 28). Sa- 
tan may tempt and successfully tempt the believer. 
He may succeed so far as to lead him far astray, but 
the good shepherd is sure to go after that which has 
wandered, and to find it and lay it on his shoulders 
rejoicing. Christ is stronger than Satan, and Christ 
has pledged Himself to hold fast to His own under 
all circumstances. Where the heart has accepted the 
divine pledge, that pledge can never fail, because it is 
divine, and not human. The confidence of the soul 
is not misplaced, even though that confidence itself 
decay. The intervention of the Lord, made good by 
that confidence, will not decay. It may adopt differ- 
ent phases, changing in these according to the changes 
in the confidence, but the saving interposition of the 
Most High remains through all changes and will at 
length accomplish its purpose. But these changes, 
alas ! these open up a subject full of sadness — it is 
nothing less than the history of the Christian's errors 
and chastisements, and in this the same faithfulness 
of our Saviour is manifest. It is because He is faith- 
ful, that He will not leave His own to spiritual suicide. 
He will use the severities of discipline to bring him 



THE FAITHFULNESS OF CHRIST. 23 

back to health of soul. He will use the rod, not as 
penal, but as corrective, until, it may be amid many 
wounds and tears, the wanderer returns in penitence 
to his Father's house. It is this phase of discipline 
that is depicted in the parallel verse to our text — " if 
we deny Him, He will deny us." It is not of revenge ; 
it is not to be equal with us ; but it is because His 
denial of us is necessary to our betterment. That 
denial is a denial before the Father in heaven, accord- 
ing to our Saviour's own words, " Whosoever shall 
deny me before men, him will I also deny before my 
Father which is in heaven." 

Our holy Lord cannot advocate our unholiness. He 
cannot justify it before his Father and our Father. He 
cannot appear as sustaining us in our folly. Even 
though He be our all-prevailing Advocate with the 
Father, that advocacy must receive exceptional elements 
when we turn away from Him to the follies of the 
world. He cannot countenance us in these. He can 
pardon, and He does pardon. The redeemed soul is par- 
doned. But its sins cannot be justified — its sins cannot 
be passed over and neglected, even though the condem- 
nation is removed. The soul is out of prison, but it is 
in the family. It is not among God's enemies, but it 
is under the Father's severe correction, and, as that 
Father is holy and loving, that severe correction will 
be administered. The Lord Jesus in His wonderful 
work for us has not eliminated that correction from 
our experience. Outside of condemnation, but inside 
the family, He denies us before the Father when we 
deny Him ; and the rod is heavy, although divine 



24 THE FAITHFULNESS OF CHRIST. 

love be behind it. Here is the seciet of all absence 
of peace from the Christian heart. Perfect peace is 
the normal Christian state, and a constant abiding in 
Christ would realize this. All departures from this 
perfect peace are proportioned to the departures from 
Christ. There may be outward trouble while the 
inward peace is perfect. The Christian abiding in 
Christ is not guaranteed against earthly oppositions 
and disappointments, but he is guaranteed against all 
inward trouble and disaster. Peace — peace is pledged 
to every soul that is stayed on the Lord. But when 
a child of God neglects, for example, His holy Word, 
and puts it aside as distasteful, preferring the world's 
literature, he is abandoning God and preparing for 
himself spiritual disaster. He deceives himself, but 
he does not deceive his Saviour. He is making his 
religion a cloak to put on and off, and not a life to 
live. He has fallen from grace not into un-grace (if 
I may coin a word), but into disgrace. He has for- 
gotten gratitude, his portion of the system of grace, 
and adopted an outward system of legality. He has 
not studied God's Word a single hour in the whole 
week, but he has spent two or three hours on the 
Sunday newspaper, and then he comes to church as 
if all were right. So he deceives himself, but he 
does not deceive his Saviour. He has denied Christ, 
and Christ will deny him. The faithfulness of his 
Saviour will beat him with stripes, perhaps with many 
stripes. How they may come we cannot tell. It may 
be by sickness ; it may be by the death of his dearest 
ones ; it may be by the carrying away of all his 



THE FAITHFULNESS OF CHRIST. 25 

worldly property ; it may be by none of these, but 
by fearful experiences of the soul unseen by others ; 
but in some way, be sure, the Lord's love for His 
own will not allow Him to leave him uncorrected, 
and the correction will be proportioned in its heavi- 
ness to the need in each case. The Lord does not do 
this with the castaways, the open rebels against Him. 
Them he often leaves to enjoy this life as Dives did. 
There are no bands in their death. They go singing 
along the pathway of life, and laugh at the poor fools 
who serve God. Their calamities are in the other 
world. There is the wailing and gnashing of teeth. 
There is the fierce fire, whose agonies no Lazarus can 
abate. Blessed be God ! His own dear ones are not 
there. They are disciplined here. — As we have said, 
there may be an outward adversity while all is peace- 
ful within, and therefore we are not to say when an 
outward adversity comes upon a Christian, " The Lord 
is chastising him." It may be the very reverse. The 
Lord may be emphasizing that believer's peace by the 
outward disturbance. He may be offering a grand 
vision of Himself, saying, u It is I — be not afraid," 
and filling the soul with unutterable comfort. And 
so, conversely, we cannot say when we see a Chris- 
tian free from all outward adversities, " ftee how 
faithful that soul must be," for there may be volca- 
noes and earthquakes in that believer's heart by rea- 
son of his imbelief. So we are not to judge one 
another in any instance. We are only to judge our- 
selves, and see the Lord's movements toward our- 
selves. "What we may be sure of is, that if we deny 



26 THE FAITHFULNESS OF CHRIST. 

Christ, Christ will deny us ; that if we, who are Christ's, 
believe not, that is, loosen our hold on our Lord, He 
abideth the same faithful Saviour, and will therefore 
correct us at any cost. 

Brethren in the Lord ! why should we not all dwell 
in the secret place of the Most High together ? Why 
should we make the use of our Lord's rod necessary \ 
It is no part of His desire toward us. It is all our 
perverseness. Have we ever found anything in the 
world equal to Christ ? Is not all grace and beauty 
divinely magnified in Him ? Isn't it a shame that 
we should go elsewhere than to Him for our comfort 
and peace ? — And if we do, shall we find it ? — We 
know well that we cannot. We shall only dwarf our 
graces and bring confusion on our souls. The way 
of Christ is the way of pleasantness and peace. All 
other ways are deceitful. If we are with Christ, we 
are with peace. Even if we suffer with Christ, the 
peace is not disturbed — the suffering is only in the 
outward state — the mind is serene and triumphant. 
Brethren, let us be faithful to Him, who is so faith- 
ful to us. Let us not be practically unbelieving be- 
lievers, but let us enjoy all of the heaven that there 
is in Christ even on this earth. 



CHRIST'S CLAIM. 

Matthew xxvi. 63, 64: "And the high-pkiest answered 
and said unto him, i adjure thee by the living god that 
thou tell us whether thou be the christ, the son of 
God. Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast saed: Neverthe- 
less, I SAT UNTO YOU, HENCEFORTH SHALL YE SEE THE SON OF 

Man sitting on the right hand of power and comlng in 
the clouds of heaven." 



This was one of the epochal scenes of the world's 
history. The grand council of the Jewish nation was 
assembled ; the high-priest, the highest dignitary of 
the ancient Church of God, presided, and before this 
august body stood the humble Galilsean, whose fame 
had rung through the land for three years. The ques- 
tion asked by the council through the high-priest as rep- 
resentative of the Church on earth, is one of vital im- 
portance to the Church and to the world, and the an- 
swer must be a stupendous truth or a stupendous lie. 
The question is put with an awful solemnity, so that 
the answer will have the character of a sworn state- 
ment. The Jewish nation and church had been long 
expecting the Messiah. When He should come the 
nation and church were to be obedient to Him. He 
would be God's own Son, as described in the second 

(27) 



28 CHRIST'S CLAIM. 

Psalm, and would gather all His faithful ones to Him- 
self. From Him and His day a new light was to 
shine upon the Church and a new glory visit the 
world. The high-priest's question, put with such 
awful solemnity to Jesus, was the great question 
whether He was the Messiah or Christ, the Anointed 
One, the Son of God promised in the prophets. 'No 
sooner was it asked than it was answered. There is 
no hesitation and there is no subterfuge. The an- 
swer is clear and categorical. Nay more, it adds a 
startling statement of the power and glory of the 
humble Eazarene. " Thou hast said," replies Jesus 
(that is an emphatic "yes"), and then He adds, 
" hereafter " (or rather, " henceforth ") " shall ye see 
the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power 
and coming in the clouds of heaven." 

Back of this clear answer was the history of three 
years of continuous miracles, well known to all that 
assembly, and not denied by them, but ascribed to 
Satanic power, and three years of a teaching and a 
life that astonished all by its spotless perfection. This 
clear answer was either true or false. If true, it was 
a most momentous truth, demanding the instant faith 
and homage of the whole Church; demanding a 
grateful, joyful welcome to the Messiah of God on 
the part of those who represented Israel. If false, it 
was the most base and blasphemous falsehood ever ut- 
tered. Who could hesitate a moment in deciding 
which it was? Those miracles, that teaching, that 
life, should have settled the matter at once. It could 
only be the truth. To suppose falsehood here was to 



CHRIST'S CLAIM. 29 

suppose a spotless, God-evidenced life could utter an 
atrocious lie. God had, so to speak, crowded the life 
of Jesus with the most potent evidences of His divine 
mission, so that he who rejected Him would reject 
truth in its plainest form. To deny such an One was 
to deny the sun at noonday, to call white black, to 
shut the convictions against all reality. And yet this 
is exactly what that Sanhedrin and that high-priest 
did. They accused the Holy One of blasphemy. 
And why ? Because they had hardened their hearts 
in their pride, determined to resist all that did not 
comport with their selfish desires of personal and na- 
tional glory in the low and earthly sense. They had 
degraded religion ; they had eliminated the spirit 
from the Scriptures ; they had debauched their own 
lives ; and so their souls were deadened to the spirit- 
ual beauty of Jesus. They were perfectly honest in 
crying out " blasphemy " at Jesus' utterance, for they 
had lost sight of truth, and so believed their own lie. 
Honest reprobates they were, if by honesty we mean 
sincerity. Millions of honest and sincere souls go 
down to eternal destruction, because they have made 
themselves deaf and Mind to the truth by their wilful 
opposition to it, until they know nothing but dark- 
ness and ignorance in which their honesty and sincer- 
ity cannot help them. It is as if a man, who has 
deliberately made himself drunk, could plead his hon- 
esty and sincerity in doing his best to walk straight 
as a plea why he should not fall into the ditch. These 
Jewish magnates represented the Church of God, and, 
as such, should have walked humbly and faithfully 



30 CHRIST'S CLAIM. 

with God, should have been examples of piety, 
should have been full of the spirit and power of 
God's Word, and should have welcomed Jesus with 
devout and sympathetic hearts. Instead of that, they 
were worldly men, striving for earthly power and 
guilty of sinful excesses. They had nothing in com- 
mon with the Holy Jesus, and hence they crucified 
the Lord of glory. 

Brethren, that same Jesus stands to-day before the 
world and asks its judgment on His claims. He says 
clearly that He is the Christ, the Son of God, and He 
tells us of His advancing kingdom. The great world 
practically side with the Sanhedrin and cry, " Crucify 
Him ! " Yes, multitudes who call themselves of the 
Church of God join in the Satanic verdict. They 
deny the Lord that bought them. They crucify the 
Son of God afresh. They rob Him of His glory, 
and strip Him of His holy and divine functions of 
redemption, as far as they are able to do this. Their 
sordid and perverted minds understand nothing of 
His pure and perfect character, nothing of His divine 
love and condescension, nothing of His atoning sac- 
rifice for sin, nothing of His paramount claims 
upon their faith and affections. They have no sym- 
pathy with Him, and only relieve their minds when 
they say, " Away with Him ! " 

But by and by there will be another scene ! There 
is a day coming when that lowly Nazarene shall be 
seen on the right hand of power and coming in the 
clouds of heaven. Every eye shall see Him, and they 
also which pierced Him, and all kindreds of the earth 



CHRIST'S CLAIM. 31 

shall wail because of Him. The despised One shall 
conquer the world, and His enemies shall vainly cry to 
the mountains to fall on them and to the hills to cover 
them, to hide them from the face of Him that sitteth 
on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. 
Human pride, which refused to bow before the tender- 
ness and love of God in Jesus, shall be ashamed and con- 
founded before the justice and glory of the exalted 
Saviour. 

While the full day of this prophecy is in future, its 
beginnings were at the day of Pentecost. Even then the 
Nazarene no longer appeared as a humble peasant be- 
fore a human tribunal, but as a mighty power by His 
Spirit subduing the hearts of men. Even then, in a 
mysterious way, as in the clouds of heaven, He came to 
the earth where He had suffered for man. The word 
" hereafter " is rightly translated " henceforth " in the 
Revised Version, — " Henceforth shall ye see the Son of 
Man sitting on the right hand of power and coming in 
the clouds of heaven." The great change was to begin 
from that eventful period. So our Lord had before 
(chap. xxiv. 30) told His disciples, " Then shall all the 
tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son 
of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power 
and great glory," and He had declared that that gen- 
eration should not pass till all this should be fulfilled 
(ver. 34). The spread of the Gospel over the earth 
directly against all the tastes and passions of man, was 
a marvel, the like of which had never occurred. 
That generation saw it, and the enemies of truth were 
grieved by it. The Jews gnashed their teeth in rage, 



32 CHRIST'S CLAIM. 

and the Gentiles vented their wrath against the con- 
quering Gospel ; but, in spite of all, the Son of Man 
sat at the right hand of power and came in the clouds 
of heaven. The divine power and the divine mystery 
were alike apparent. There was the conquest and 
there were the clouds. Then began that double view 
of Jesus which shall have its consummation in a 
future day — the adoring view of Jesus as the soul's 
Saviour, and the hostile view of those who resist their 
convictions, and hate Him, and cry to their own vain 
philosophies or selfish schemes to hide them from His 
heavenly face. This double action, here and now, is 
but a rehearsal of the final judgment. Men now be- 
hold Jesus on the right hand of power and coming in 
the heavenly clouds converting millions, and yet they 
reject Him and take refuge in their own vain im- 
aginations. They see it all, yet do not perceive it. 
It appears before them without impressing them. 
The lowly Xazarene is performing His wonderful 
miracles of conversion all over the world, and these 
miracles are open to the observation of all, but the 
minds of men, rendered stupid by sin, are callous 
toward all these stupendous facts and treat them 
as if they did not exist. 

And yet, here is the great question for every human 
soul to consider. All things else are of trifling im- 
portance in comparison. Before each soul stands the 
humble peasant of Galilee as on trial, waiting for that 
soul's verdict. That lowly Jesus declares solemnly to 
that soul that He is the Messiah of God, the One great de- 
liverer from sin predicted by Moses and the prophets, the 



CHRIST'S CLAIM. 33 

Son of God, the Eternal Word, the Almighty Saviour 
of man. There He stands, so humble in appearance 
and so exalted in His declaration. He points to the 
Scriptures that testify of Him, and He points to His 
own life and teachings, and miracles, and death as the 
evidences of His truth. He also points to the millions 
who have found rest and peace in Him. He presses 
all this on the soul. He also predicts the advance- 
ment of His power and glory. And now it is for the 
soul to give its verdict. What shall it be ? Shall it 
be that of the Jewish Sanhedrin? Shall it affect 
horror at the blasphemy and condemn the soul's de- 
liverer as an impostor ? Shall it cry, " Away with 
Him — crucify Him " ? It must be either that or a 
hearty and grateful submission to His wonderful 
grace and power. There is no middle ground. Every 
soul that refuses this submission, utters its verdict of 
condemnation against Christ. It crucifies the Son of 
God afresh. 

I speak to any one here to-day who has refused sub- 
mission to the Lord of Salvation. You have taken sides 
with the high-priest and the Sanhedrin. You have said, 
"Away with Him." Are you prepared to abide by 
that verdict ? Are you ready to go into eternity with 
this as your chosen position toward the divine Saviour? 
Are you willing to go before God's bar and say, " Jesus 
came before me and declared to me that He was the Son 
of God. He showed me His life and teachings, His 
miracles and death, and His victories over the human 
heart. He showed me the peace He gave to those who 
received Him. He showed me His own purity and 



34 CHRIST'S CLAIM. 

love. He showed me His sufferings for me, and His 
heart of sympathy to save me from my sins through 
those sufferings. He promised me the Holy Spirit 
and eternal life. And I, in face of all this, rejected 
Him and would have none of Him. I treated Him 
as an impostor. I set the seal of my life against all 
His claims and demands, and virtually signed the sen- 
tence of His crucifixion. That's what I did, and 
that's what I hold to." Are you ready to say that at 
God's judgment bar ? 

Carry that thought into your secret heart, and see 
if any superficial talk about all religions being equally 
good, or earthly desires being made to be gratified, or 
many different opinions existing among men, will sat- 
isfy your mind and conscience before the pungent 
evidences of God's eternal truth in Jesus. Be honest 
with yourself. Do not ruin your soul by obeying a 
desperate impulse, to which Satan is always tempting 
you. Bow humbly before God. Surely that is reason- 
able. Abandon self and look only to God. In this 
light of God behold Jesus as He stands before your 
soul. Let pride be cast down and everything given 
up for truth — God's truth, saving truth. This may be 
the last time that Jesus may stand before you for a 
verdict. Your decision now may be your final decision, 
which you will have to meet at God's judgment. The 
reversal of your verdict there would be your everlasting 
condemnation. Oh, be sure to give the verdict to-day 
that will cause you joy, and not grief, on that great 
day of assize. 

And now, dear brethren in the Lord Jesus, I ad- 



CHRIST'S CLAIM. 35 

dress you who know the preciousness of the Son of 
God, who see in His humility His divine majesty, 
who with your spiritual eyes behold Him to-day sit- 
ting on the right hand of power and coming in the 
clouds of heaven, and who rejoice as you see His 
growing kingdom on our sinful earth. I speak to 
you, and put the question, " How should we appear in 
view of our relation to Him ? " To use the words of 
the apostle, " What manner of persons ought we to be 
in all holy conversation and godliness \ " 

We are those who resist the world's condemnation 
of Christ. We are those who exclaim against the 
Satanic cry, " Away with Him — crucify Him." 
Are we doing this faithfully? Does the world's 
great sanhedrin of wickedness know us as denounc- 
ing them and upholding our Lord's cause \ Is our 
position so well defined, so pronounced, that every 
member of the world's sanhedrin sees at once that we 
are with Jesus and against His accusers % No other 
position becomes us. Anything less is a pain to our 
Lord's heart. It is grieving the Spirit. It is for us 
in our daily walk and work to be known as Christ's, 
with His name written both on our hearts and on our 
foreheads. To hide that name is to deny our Lord. 
Our clerks, our employes, our business friends, our 
social acquaintances, should all know by our lives that 
we are solidly, steadfastly, and strictly, in and for 
Christ. There should never be the lowering of His 
flag for an instant. If men will not associate with us 
on this ground, if they will withdraw custom or op- 
pose our plans because we will not dodge or compro- 



36 CHRIST'S CLAIM. 

raise where Christ is concerned, then let them do what 
they please ; we shall carry a peaceful conscience and 
a happy heart. Our blessed Lord stands before us, 
not as He appeared to the blind and wicked preju- 
dices of the Sanhedrin, but as He then proclaimed 
Himself — the Christ, the Son of God. We see Him 
sitting on the right hand of power ; we behold Him 
coming in the clouds of heaven. We claim Him as 
our Lord, our Saviour. We accept His precious 
promises. We trust His divine grace. We see in 
Him the surety of our salvation, the pledge of our 
glory. Our entire future is established on His love. 
We have given a far different verdict from that of 
the Sanhedrin. We have bowed gratefully before 
the humble Nazarene and said, "My Lord and my 
God." Oh, what a life for us this implies ! A life 
of devotion, a life of zeal, a life of faith, a life of love ! 
It is as we look upon Him that our lives will be made 
purer and holier. And we should be always looking 
upon Him. What other light in the universe is to 
be compared with Him? What infinite variety of 
beauty there is in Him ! We can never fathom the 
depths of His perfections. The eternal God shines 
through the man Christ Jesus. The beholding Christ 
takes away fear, lightens every burden, cheers away 
sorrow, and instills new strength to our weak hearts. 
The more we look at Him, the more we love Him, 
till we say, " None but Jesus," " JSTone but Jesus." 
"He is my All in all." 

Brethren, it is this practical response to His dec- 
laration to us that He is the Son of God that we ought 



CHRIST'S CLAIM. 37 

all to make. For us to live should be Christ. All 
our conduct should spring from Him as its source. 
His Spirit should fill our lives. Kemember that He 
meets all our advances toward Him with a stronger 
affection than we have. Kemember that His love for 
us is to be measured by G-ethsemane and Calvary. 
Remember that His heart rejoices as we give our- 
selves entirely to Him. He seeks our full and hearty 
embrace. He wishes His warm love to be met by 
ours equally as warm. Isn't this a most reasonable 
wish I Shall we deny it ? Shall we divide our hearts 
between Him and the world? Surely not. If we 
love Him because He first loved us, shall we not love 
Him as He has loved us ? 

It will not be long before His sitting at the right 
hand of power and His coming in the clouds of 
heaven shall be consummated. The whole universe 
will acknowledge Him, when the two words, " Come " 
and " Depart," shall be used by Him as the Holy and 
Righteous Judge. What an ineffable joy to hear on 
that day addressed to us, who love Him here, those 
divine words, " Come, ye blessed of my Father, in- 
herit the kingdom prepared for you from the founda- 
tion of the world " ! 



CHEIST THE KAINBOW. 

Revelation iv. 3: "There was a rainbow round about 

THE THRONE, IN SIGHT LIKE UNTO AN EMERALD." 

We need not understand all the details of this book 
of Revelation in order rightly to understand the pas- 
sage in which occurs the text. It may be to us a 
very mysterious and perplexing book, and yet this 
opening of the apostle's second vision explains itself. 
It is a view of God, who is the same yesterday, to-day, 
and forever. " No man hath seen God at any time. 
The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the 
Father, He hath declared Him." Every sight of God, 
then, is a sight of the Son, and this in the Eevelation 
can be no exception. If it is objected to this that 
the Lamb, who appears between the throne and the 
twenty-four elders, is the Son, I reply that the Lamb 
is the Son of Man, and He upon the throne is the 
Son of God. In other words, the throne holds the 
Mighty God and Everlasting Father as seen in the 
person of Jesus Christ, and the " Lamb as it had been 
slain" represents the perfect humanity, that suffered 
and died as a substitute for us sinners, as seen also in 
the person of Jesus Christ. 

Seven centuries before John saw this vision of the 
Lord, Ezekiel had witnessed a like manifestation. Hear 



CHRIST THE RAINBOW. 39 

his description : " Above the firmament that was over 
their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appear- 
ance of a sapphire stone." By exactly following the 
Hebrew here, we find that it is not the throne, but the 
firmament under the throne that is like sapphire. And 
so in the view of Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and sev- 
enty of the elders of Israel, who saw the God of Israel, 
there was under His feet as it were a paved work of a 
sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in 
his clearness. To recur then to Ezekiel's description : 
" Above the firmament that was over their heads as 
the appearance of a sapphire stone, there was the like- 
ness of a throne, and upon the likeness of the throne 
was the likeness as the appearance of a man above 
upon it. And I saw as the color of amber" (lit., 
" polished brass "), " as the appearance of fire round 
about within it, from the appearance of his loins even 
upwards, and from the appearance of his loins even 
downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, 
and it had brightness (that is, radiant splendor) 
round about. As the appearance of the bow that is 
in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance 
of the brightness round about." 

Now note the view before John's eye at Patmos : 
" A throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. 
And he that sat was in sight like a jasper and a sar- 
dine stone, and there was a rainbow round about the 
throne in sight like unto an emerald." From these 
collated views we behold the broad blue firmament 
as the foundation of the throne in the vision. In the 
throne sits a human form. This form glows as a flame 



40 CHRIST THE RAINBOW. 

of fire, having the color of polished brass, with a brill- 
iancy that mingles the clearness of the jasper or dia- 
mond, and the glow of the yellow sardine stone. Out 
beyond this effulgent person of the king upon the 
throne, and encircling the throne in its perfect scope, 
is a halo of glory that appears as a heavenly rainbow. 
It is the radiant splendor of the king himself. It is 
to the contemplation of this feature of the view I 
invite you this morning. 

We need not be told that all this is figurative 
language, and yet perhaps there is something besides 
figure. That the heavenly world is not a world of 
spirit only, we know from the fact that " there is a 
spiritual hody" from the fact that Jesus and Enoch 
and Elijah possess new bodies in the spiritual world, 
and from the fact that our bodies are to be raised 
from their sleep in the grave. There is something in 
that world which is not only analogous, but is similar 
to the enjoyment of our physical senses here. There 
will be and there is, in some mode, a visible, external 
manifestation of God's glory. These descriptions, 
therefore, of Ezekiel, Daniel, and John are not only 
figurative — they are also proximate descriptions of 
sensible objects. That they betoken great spiritual 
facts there can be no question. The pattern shown 
Moses in the Mount of God must have been addressed 
to his senses, and was exactly copied in the tabernacle 
and its furniture, but who supposes that the meaning 
of these details ended here % Who does not see that 
those heavenly forms were signs and symbols of the 
grand truths which cluster around Redemption? So 



CHRIST THE RAINBOW. 41 

now, while we have no doubt that there are externals 
in heaven corresponding to these views of the prophet 
and apostle, it is our purpose to endeavor to trace the 
spiritual fact that is betokened by this emerald iris 
encircling the heavenly throne. 

In order to this, let us first recall the words of God 
to Noah immediately after the fearful scenes of the 
deluge, in which words the attention of the human race 
is called to the rainbow and a meaning attached to the 
beautiful phenomenon by its Maker. God then made 
a solemn promise to man, an everlasting covenant, 
never to cut off man or beast from the earth by a 
flood again, adding these words, " I do set my bow 
in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant, 
between me and the earth, and it shall come to pass, 
when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow 
shall be seen in the cloud ; and I will remember my 
covenant, which is between me and you and every 
living creature of all flesh ; and the waters shall no 
more become a flood to destroy all flesh." There is 
something here beyond what is usually found. It is 
not simply that God takes the frequently occurring 
phenomenon of the rainbow, which the antediluvians 
must have witnessed a myriad of times, and from this 
time appoints it as a seal or pledge of His covenant 
with the race. It is more than that. It has a retro- 
spective reference too. God has no second thoughts. 
What He did in Noah's time, He intended to do from 
the beginning. When He fashioned what we feebly 
call the laws of nature, His covenant with Noah was 
just as present with Him as it was when He disclosed 



42 CHRIST THE RAINBOW. 

it to Noah. "When He set His bow in the cloud, it had 
all the meaning it ever had. When it became a 
declared seal of a special promise of security from 
future floods to Noah, it became, it is true, of peculiar 
application ; but the great meaning of the rainbow, 
which made it appropriate for this special application, 
lay behind. God does not, like man, look around for 
an expedient, a makeshift, in cases of emergency. He 
has no emergency, and hence what He takes as a sign 
and seal is not a rude analogy discovered by acuteness 
under pressure of circumstances, but a perfect analogy 
formed by the Maker of all on purpose to be the sign 
and seal. We are therefore to see in the rainbow a 
divine fitness for its Noachic use, a grand typical 
meaning, of which the Noachic use is only an applica- 
tion to one special end, a development of the typical 
meaning. 

Let us, then, in the second place, note some of the 
physical facts connected with the rainbow. Of course, 
that a physical causation lies behind every rainbow is 
nothing against its divine meaning except in the mind 
of low physicists, who are unable to rise beyond the 
material creation. The God and Father of our spirits 
is the Maker of the material creation and all its 
sequences, which we call laws, and has made all this 
material creation in perfect harmony with the spiritual 
world. The One Infinite God has put His spirit into 
all things, and directs all things by one consistent 
will. Matter and spirit are detached from one an- 
other only to our finite eyes. They belong equally 
to God's one universe, and God's analogies between 



CHRIST THE RAINBOW. 43 

them are real connections, though we may fail to 
reach the point of union. The great fact that every 
movement of nature is an act of God does not militate 
against the concatenation of material cause and effect, 
any more than the power of the engineer over his 
engine militates against the sequences of motion in 
the complicated structure. And yet this simile shows 
us only part of the truth, for the engineer has to do 
with laws which are not his own, but God has to deal 
with laws of His own make, and fitted exactly to 
accomplish all the purposes, however minute, He 
designed to execute. The great error of unbelieving 
naturalists has arisen just here, that they have found 
in gravitation, or some other universal law, a resting- 
place of contemplation, thus ignoring the personal 
God with mind and heart, after whose likeness their 
own minds and hearts were created. 

Let us now look at the physical law of the rainbow, 
remembering that God made that law and the rain- 
bow, and in the making figured forth a profound 
spiritual truth. The rainbow has only been understood 
in its physical structure since the day of Sir Isaac New- 
ton. That successful explorer of nature, by his re- 
searches in optics, enabled us to perceive that the rain- 
bow was not simply a reflection of sunlight against a 
storm-cloud, but a refraction and decomposition of the 
sunlight prior to reflection, that the white solar beam 
was turned from its direct route by the watery drops 
of the cloud's front, and in this deflection or refraction 
the colors of the solar beam were separated by their 
different powers of deflection. These colors begin 



44 CHRIST THE RAINBOW. 

with red and end with blue. In the centre is green. 
Between these are endless shades of approach and 
departure. This gorgeous scene is apparent only on 
a cloud opposite the sun. Often the ends of the bow 
appear to dip between the hills and our eyes, and the 
rich green of the fertile fields adds a new lustre to the 
glories of the iris. 

Let us now, thirdly, see how the God of grace 
and salvation has stamped His great purpose of 
love upon the face of nature. Let us be prepared 
hereafter to look upon the graceful and brilliant 
arch of heaven as a presentation, in God's magnifi- 
cent symbols, of the Lord Jesus Christ. For (1). As 
the rainbow is the sun's light, so the Lord Jesus 
is the shining forth of God's glory. The divin- 
ity of Christ is the foundation of redemption. Sal- 
vation through Christ is a divine rescue of man's 
lost soul. There can be no rescue but a divine. The 
light of Jesus is the essential light of God. (2). The 
rainbow lies upon the dark, forbidding storm-cloud. 
So Jesus is God transferred to the side of sin. The 
fearful sin of man was ready to destroy us as with a 
flood, of which the historic deluge was a type, when 
God sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. 
He made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin. 
God was manifest in the flesh. He became man. 
We can look at the rainbow. We cannot look at the 
sun. It is too dazzling for our weak eyes. So no man 
hath seen God at any time ; the only-begotten Son, 
who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared 
Him. We can look on Jesus and see God with com- 



CHRIST THE RAINBOW. 45 

fort and satisfaction. There on the sin-side, on the 
man-side, we can behold God and live. It is to this 
view of God the Gospel invites us. " The bow shall 
be in the cloud." (3). The rainbow is brilliant in its 
colors, made so to us by refraction and decomposition 
of light. So the glory of Jesus is in the analysis of 
His perfections, which we can only analyze, as He is 
mem. As exhibited in His humanity, we can under- 
stand His love, His sympathy, His forgiveness, His for- 
bearance, His patience, His watchfulness, and His care, 
as we could not at all understand them in the abstract 
God. They are all in the essential Deity, but they 
are there in ineffable union and brilliancy, to which 
no finite eye can penetrate. But in Jesus, the mani- 
fested God, God projected and impressed upon hu- 
manity, these beauties of character and activity, 
these attributes of life are revealed in their united 
variety. There has been the refraction of humiliation 
and suffering to bring about this result. The solar 
beam has been turned from its course by the condition 
of the cloud. Man's sin has bent the justice of God 
into its revelation of mercy and pardon. The con- 
sistency of God is no more destroyed in this than is 
the consistency of nature in the refraction of the sun- 
beam. God, in becoming man, received the curse of 
man's sin upon Him, and in this stoop of divine love 
for sinners shone out the brilliant colors of pardoning 
grace. It is the bend of justice into mercy which 
puts Jesus before our eyes so "altogether lovely." 
The light of the rainbow is the same as that of the 
sun, and yet how different to our eyes 1 God's truth 



46 CHRIST THE RAINBOW. 

never changes, and yet how differently it appears in 
Jesus the Saviour from what it appears in the Su- 
preme Judge, or rather in the notion of Abstract 
Justice ! 

There are two facts regarding our Lord Jesus 
brought out conspicuously in this emblem of the rain- 
bow as seen by the apostle John. The one is the 
permanence of His grace. The rainbow was round 
about the heavenly throne. So to speak, it is part of 
the permanent furniture of heaven. It is no evanes- 
cent phenomenon. The grace that speaks so gently 
to us and bids our poor tossed souls to find rest in God's 
arms of love is a grace that knows no limit to its 
power. " The soul that on Jesus has leaned for 
repose, He'll never, no, never, desert to its foes." The 
prospect is perfectly clear. No deluge can ever be 
outpoured upon the trusting soul. The rainbow is 
God's seal of a promise, and a promise of God is an 
eternal law. The rainbow is as enduring as the throne 
of God. God the Saviour is as ever visible as God 
the King. Redemption is as much a part of the 
eternal purpose as government. The protection of 
His trusting people is the conspicuous glory of the God 
of heaven. It is not that we are saved here by God's 
grace, our sins pardoned and the germ of holiness 
implanted, and that there in the other world we are 
started upon a new career of self-reliance with liability 
to fall again into ruin. No ! the grace that comes to 
us through Christ's cross is an eternal grace. It up- 
holds us forever. The rainbow is even more beauti- 
ful than ever when we see it in its primal archetype 



CHRIST THE RAINBOW. 47 

above. It is the object on which the happy gaze of 
the redeemed in glory is fixed with ever fresh delight. 
The loving hand of Him who rescued us from sin 
and hell will hold us safe forever. This is the story 
of the heavenly bow. 

Another fact in the vision of John regards the pre- 
vailing color of the rainbow. All the prismatic colors 
glow together there, but the soft green, the central 
color, equally removed from the extremes of red and 
blue, is the dominant hue. It was " in sight like unto 
an emerald." The green, with which Nature arrays 
the fields and the trees, is the mildest color to the 
human eye, while it is the color of richest growth. 
The red and blue rays are absorbed to develop the fair 
and cheerful green. So Christ's solitariness and suffer- 
ing, His long humiliation and bloody death were given 
to enrich our souls and spread over them a comfort 
commensurate with His love. The central hue of the 
rainbow is the central thought of redemption — our 
happiness and spiritual growth. For this was all the 
woe a spotless Saviour suffered ; for this are Church 
and Bible and the living voice of Christian heralds to 
the end of time. 

With such a Saviour revealed, — such a perpetual 
appeal of the God of glory to our sin-ruined souls, — 
the great multitude, rich and poor, refined and vulgar, 
cultured and illiterate, pass on heedless, so they may 
gain their little ephemeral pleasure, only to lose it all. 
The stupid boor cares not for the rainbow. He 
must look after his cattle. And so the men of science 
and the men of learning, as well as the men of 



48 CHRIST THE RAINBOW. 

pleasure and the men of power, have their cattle to 
look after, while God's grand rainbow of mercy, the 
manifested glory of God in Jesus Christ, is all un- 
noticed or treated with a scorn. The Scandinavians 
called the rainbow the bridge of God. Even so, 
dear brethren, those of us who reach heaven will 
reach it only by that divine bridge. 



FOE CHKIST'S SAKE. 

1 John ii. 12: " For His name's sake," 

It is not without reason that the divine instinct in 
the Church of Christ has led the prayers of Christians 
to end with the phrase, " for Christ's sake." Such a 
termination is not commanded, nor is any such model 
given us in Scripture. The Lord's prayer ends with 
a doxology. The prayer of the disciples in Jerusa- 
lem, after the first arrest of the apostles, ended with a 
petition. How is it that the Church has made it a 
universal custom to close all petitions to God with the 
words, " For Christ's sake " ? There must be a reason 
for it, and there must be a good reason, too, where 
there has been such unanimity on the part of godly 
men. 

Let us first inquire the meaning of the phrase. 
What is meant by "for Christ's sake"? "Sake "is 
an old word for " cause." " Do this for my sake," is 
" Do this for my cause." " Eeceive this for my sake," 
is " Receive this for my cause." You see at once that 
in these instances I may be the cause in either of two 
ways. I may be the cause as the one for whom the 
benefit is wrought, or I may be the cause as the one 
by whom the benefit is wrought. For example, I say, 
" Give my friend a dollar for my sake." I mean, 

(49) 



50 FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. 

" Give him a dollar, and it will be a benefit to me" 
But I may say, " The Governor will let you out of 
prison for my sake," when I mean, " The Governor 
will let you out of prison as a benefit to you, because 
of my intervention." Now, in which of these ways 
does the phrase belong to our prayers ? When we say, 
" for Christ's sake," do we mean, " in order to confer 
a benefit on Christ," or do we mean, "confer the 
benefit on us through the intervention or merits of 
Christ'? 

I think a careful study of the Scriptures will show 
us that both meanings enter into the phrase ; that we 
look upon Jesus as both the source and the object of 
our benefit. It is through, Him the blessing flows, 
and it is to Him the blessing redounds. 

The passage which we have taken as our text will 
illustrate this. 

The apostle John, in his old age, is affectionately 
addressing the believers, and he is holding up the 
Lord Jesus Christ as their advocate and propitiation. 
" If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Fa- 
ther, Jesus Christ the righteous, and He is the propi- 
tiation for our sins." He shows that the heart-knowl- 
edge of Jesus is the essence of the godly life, because in 
Christ are forgiveness and light ; forgiveness, which 
brings the soul into relation with God ; and light, which 
from God illuminates the soul and fills it with the knowl- 
edge of divine things. The old apostle tells the believers 
that he writes to them because they occupy this high 
position. They can understand the lofty themes of di- 
vine love and its connections. They can accept and ap- 



FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. 51 

predate the apostolic injunctions : " I write unto you, 
little children, because your sins are forgiven you for 
His name's sake." These are his words. He calls be- 
lievers his little children, because he was a very old 
man and a very old apostle of the Lord, who, seventy 
years before, had received his commission and learned 
his lessons of truth directly from Jesus himself. He 
tells them that their sins are forgiven for that very 
Jesus' sake, or, more exactly, for His name's sake. 
The name of Jesus is all that makes Jesus known. 
This use of the word " name " is a common Hebra- 
ism. The " name " of God is constantly spoken of in 
the Old Testament, where the manifested works of 
God are meant, every thing by which we know God. 
Let me illustrate this by a few examples. Of the 
temple or tabernacle, it is said, " The Lord your God 
shall choose to put His name there" (Deut. xii. 5). 
" How excellent is Thy name in all the earth " (Ps. 
viii. 1). "I will declare Thy name to my brethren" 
(Ps. xxii. 22). " For that Thy name is near Thy works 
declare " (Ps. lxxv. 1). " Thou art great and Thy 
name is great in might " (Jer. x. 6). " The man of 
wisdom shall see Thy name " (Mic. vi. 9). These 
quotations from Scripture show that God's name is 
that which makes Him known, His words and acts of 
every kind, whether natural or supernatural. So 
Christ's name is all that Christ is manifested by to 
us who believe. It is His condescending and lov- 
ing work of expiation for sin, His whole sacrificial 
career as the Lamb of God, for that was the distin- 
guishing mark of His whole work, as the Baptist 



52 FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. 

showed, when he first pointed Him out, " Behold, the 
Lamb of God ; who taketh away the sin of the 
world ! " Hence the phrase, " for His name's sake," 
is equivalent to this, " for His sake, as He has been 
manifested." Well, here we are told that our forgive- 
ness comes from this source. This certainly is a bene- 
fit to us. We are the recipients of the blessing. The 
load of sin which was sinking us to perdition is removed. 
The condemnation so fearful no longer exists. We are 
at peace with God. Nothing hinders the love of God 
to us and our love to Him. We are no longer slaves, 
but God's own freemen. And this is said to be " for 
Christ's name's sake." Surely we cannot have any 
doubt that Christ is the cause of our forgiveness. He 
is not merely the occasion of it, as those teach who 
say He was only our example, but He is the efficient 
and meritorious cause. We did not deserve forgive- 
ness. The idea of deserving forgiveness is a contra- 
diction. If we deserve it, we do not need it. Christ 
died for our sins. He was made an offering for sin 
for us. He redeemed us by His blood. All these 
and many other such expressions in the Scriptures 
show that Christ took our place and suffered in our 
stead, and, therefore, because of this expiatory work 
of Christ, God can be just, and yet justify him that 
believeth in Jesus. When the apostle says, therefore, 
that our " sins are forgiven for His name's sake," he 
means that because of Christ's wonderful manifesta- 
tion as the sacrificial Lamb of God, becoming the 
curse and dying for us, God forgives us. 
How very different this is from the false doctrine, so 



FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. 53 

prevalent in some quarters, that Christ came merely to 
show us how a man ought to be willing to suffer or 
how a man ought to live in holiness. In such a teach- 
ing the words " expiation," " propitiation," " ransom," 
and "blood" have no meaning, and the whole sacri- 
ficial system of the old Church is equally meaning- 
less. The Bible is robbed of the very heart of its 
revelation. Indeed, by such teaching there was no 
necessity for Christ to come at all. His coming adds 
no new factor to the problem of salvation. He is 
only God coming into visibility and showing how 
good it is to be good. He is God telling in the flesh 
how He loves us, which before He had told through 
prophets. He does no work for us. He accom- 
plishes no integral part of our salvation. He is not a 
Saviour. He does not save. He only tells us that 
we ought to save ourselves. This is the wretched 
gospel of what is called the " New Theology," which, 
however, is as old as the second century, when men 
desired to unite pagan philosophy to Christianity and 
make them all one. It is the effort to make Christi- 
anity natural instead of supernatural, and to recon- 
cile it to man's own reasonings, to fill up the chasm 
between Christianity and the world, to make reason 
the true guide to man, and to take the Scriptures as 
a secondary help. Christ is thus put alongside of 
Buddha and Zoroaster and Marcus Aurelius, as a 
manifestation of divine goodness on the earth, and 
the whole distinctiveness of the Gospel is gone — evap- 
orated into generalities. 

All counter to this is the clear teaching of God's 



54 FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. 

revealed "Word, that the Son of God came to die 
for us, came to be our ransom from sin, came to 
carry our sins on Himself to the cross as the altar 
of sacrifice, came to remove the obstacle in the 
way of the divine forgiveness, came thus to perform 
an absolutely necessary work — a necessary link in the 
chain of salvation ; nay, the main link, without which 
no sinner could escape from the prison-house of sin. 
No human reason ever could have conceived of such 
a Saviour. God's revelation only could have made 
Him known. And any effort of human reason to 
evolve out of itself a way of salvation or a way of 
eternal life is simply an effort of human pride and 
ignorance. Man's reason, as well as his heart, is cor- 
rupted by sin. It is defective in its material of knowl- 
edge and it is defective in its appreciation of known 
facts. Man, by himself, has no idea of the heinous- 
ness of sin, and hence has no idea of the need of a 
Saviour or of the absolute necessity of a hell. Hence 
he tries to do away with all these teachings of Scrip- 
ture. The phrase, "for Jesus' sake," can have no 
meaning to one who thus does away with all that is 
distinctive in the Gospel. But to the humble be- 
liever, what a depth of meaning there is in these 
words ! " For Jesus' sake " means that Jesus stands 
in my place, that He answers for me when Satan, the 
great accuser, would accuse me ; that He makes my 
prayers acceptable through His own merits; that 
when I pray with all my weakness and sinfulness, 
Jesus, in His spotless holiness, prays. This is what 
was symbolized by the incense from the golden altar. 



FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. 55 

It was the praying of Christ going up with the prayer 
of the saints, and thus making them a sweet savor be- 
fore God. You remember the passage in the Revela- 
tion, " And there was given unto Him much incense 
that He should add it to the prayers of all saints upon 
the golden altar which was before the throne." What 
holy boldness this thought gives us in approaching an 
infinitely holy God, who cannot look upon iniquity ! 
"We know that sin is mixed with all we do, that it is 
mixed with our holiest exercises, that it intrudes it- 
self into our prayers. What a comfort, then, to know 
that Jesus, in His perfect holiness, stands by us and 
makes our prayers His own ! that He makes them fit 
to approach the infinitely holy God. He is the divine 
passport to the divine throne. 

But we said that Jesus was not only the source of 
the benefit, and that therefore we say "for Jesus' 
sake," but that He is also the object of the benefit. 
Herein is really a mystery. But yet it is true. The 
Lord of glory has, in His wonderful condescension 
and grace, so identified Himself with every believer 
that He makes his cause His own. And so He 
prayed (in the seventeenth of John) to the Father for 
us as for Himself : " I pray for them : I pray not for 
the world, but for them which Thou hast given 
me; for they are Thine, and all mine are Thine, 
and Thine are mine, and I am glorified in them? 
Look at that declaration of our blessed Lord : 
"Iam glorified in them." Consequently, when we 
seek our spiritual increase, we are seeking Christ's 
glory, and we can use the phrase, " for Jesus' sake," 



56 FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. 

not omy as meaning that Jesus has merited for us, 
but as also meaning that Jesus may he glorified in us. 
That wonderful identification of the soul with Je- 
sus is too little appreciated by believers. Paul says, 
" I live — yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." So the 
phrases, " being in Christ," and " Christ in us," tell 
the same story. Eating Christ's body and drinking 
His blood are ways of expressing the same mysterious 
truth. When we rise to the appreciation of this great 
fact, we are at once placed on a high vantage-ground 
over sin and sorrow ; we are more completely under 
the control of the Holy Spirit ; we are purer, holier, 
happier. Our prayers then are more simple, more 
heavenly, more powerful, because they lay hold of 
this great argument, "for Jesus' sake," as their 
prompting and their pledge. We appear before the 
throne in the name of Jesus ; we, by a right which is 
not presumptuously assumed, but which is given us 
by our Lord, use His name as our own. It is written 
on our hearts as well as on our foreheads. What a 
glory this is ! And what a grand thing prayer is in 
this light! It is no weak tentative of a doubting 
soul. It is no form of words. It is no experiment 
of the reason. It is communion with God. It is 
more, even. It is the communion of the Eternal Son 
with the Father, in which communion we are, in the 
Son, made one with Him according to His own 
prayer, " as Thou, Father, art in me and I in Thee, 

that they also may be one in us I in them 

and Thou in me." It is this exalted character of 
prayer we behold in the use of the words, " for Je- 



FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. 57 

sus' sake." Yes, it is, " Lord, do it for him, for He 
is one with us ; do it for him, for He wishes it ; do it 
for him, for He is glorified in us." 

Now, of these two meanings of the words, " for Je- 
sus' sake," the first is more readily apprehended than 
the second. The second implies a higher Christian 
life than the average. The first, that Jesus has borne 
our sins and thus removed the obstacle between us 
and God's throne, giving us the benefit — this can be 
understood and acted on by every converted soul. 
It is the foundation of peace and hope. It is the 
corner-stone of our faith. Blessed are they who can 
say " for Jesus' sake " in this sense. They know they 
have an Advocate with God who has a right to plead 
for them. They know that God's abounding love 
reaches out to them through Jesus Christ, the Son of 
God. They pray acceptably to God in the name of 
this Advocate. Each prayer arises with the incense 
of Jesus' merits and power. 

But the second meaning of the words " for Jesus' 
sake," namely, that Jesus himself will receive a 
benefit, that He will be glorified in us, — this can be 
apprehended only by the soul that lives in close con- 
tact with the Kedeemer. Used by a worldly Chris- 
tian, it is simply blasphemy — presumption in holy 
things. But the Christian who lives close to Christ 
knows how Christ is with him, and wishes with him 
his advancement as Christ's own glory. In the depth 
of a true humility, he uses " for Christ's sake " in this 
lofty meaning. He feels his oneness with Jesus in a 
manner that cannot be described, nor does he wish to 



58 FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. 

talk about it; for it is one of the holy secrets of 
his heart, and to speak of it is to defile it. To him 
prayer is not only a comfort, but an ecstasy. Not 
only peace, but joy also, forms a large element of his 
experience in prayer. " For Jesus' sake " has a mean- 
ing not only regarding his earthly state, but one re- 
garding his heavenly state. It not only proclaims 
Jesus as his Saviour, but also as his Indweller — his 
Eternal Portion — his very Life ! 

Dear brethren, is not this the true position for each 
one of us ? Shall we let anything keep us from this 
rich foretaste of heaven ? Shall not our prayers be 
sweeter far than ever to us, as we feel the double 
power of that divine phrase, " for His name's sake " 
— " for Jesus' sake " I 



SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 
Luke x. 39 : " And she had a sister called Mary, which 

ALSO SAT AT JESUS' FEET AND HEARD HlS WORD." 

The Mount of Olives separated two widely-differ- 
ing scenes in our Saviour's life. On the west was 
Jerusalem, the restless city, where in the midst of 
privileges, pride resisted and scorned the Truth, and 
prepared a cross far its divine exponent. On the 
east was the quiet village, Bethany, associated in 
every Christian's mind with thoughts of simple piety 
and precious communion with Jesus. 

The family group which is identified with this rural 
spot possessed marks of unusual interest. They had 
all perceived and hailed the Messiah ship of Jesus. 
His works and words had wrought their rightful influ- 
ence on their hearts. They showed by their accept- 
ance of the Master what all Israel might have been, 
if prejudice and selfishness had yielded to the truth, 
in which case the ancient people of God would have 
continued even through the ages to this day, to minis- 
ter the Word of God to all nations. One of this 
family group, the brother, had gone down to the 
tomb, and, at the word of Jesus, had burst its bars 
and returned to the companionship of his sisters. 
Whether he had entered the world of light and, like 

(59) 



60 SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 

Paul, had seen things impossible to utter, or whether 
he had been held in extraordinary stupor or sleep of 
soul (if this be possible) in view of his speedy recall, 
we cannot tell. Whatever the process may have been, 
Lazarus was one brought back from the dead, a living 
proof and trophy of Christ's power over death. What 
a deep, clear tone of reality this must have given to 
the spiritual teachings of our Lord in that faithful 
and favored household ! If we are to consider Simon, 
the leper, as a member of this family, either another 
brother, or the husband of Martha, then one recovered 
from the living death of leprosy, doubtless by the 
same hand of Jesus, was found in this remarkable 
group. 

Here Jesus found a cherished home while waiting 
for His hour to arrive, when He should become the 
Paschal Lamb for the sin of the world. Here, amid 
the piety of this family, He could anticipate the tri- 
umphs of His work and word, and see proleptically 
the character and condition of the Christian Church. 
Here was foretokened the sweet calm — the heavenly 
peace — that the fierce struggles of Gethsemane and 
Golgotha were to purchase. Just such a peaceful 
scene was appropriate for the Master after the day's 
weary conflict with the unbelieving scoffers of the 
temple, who stood as a wall against the reception of 
the truth by the people of Jerusalem ; and hence we 
find Him every evening taking His way over the 
Mount of Olives to the retirement of Bethany. Of 
the two sisters in this village home, Martha was the 
more active spirit, but over-anxious in her activity, 



SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 61 

too ready to find fault, impatient of the tastes and 
habits of others. Mary, to whom our text refers, 
was of a more even disposition, a gentler tone, a more 
thoughtful mind. Her piety received the special 
commendation of Jesus, and her spiritual discernment 
far transcended that of the apostles themselves. Her 
anointing of Jesus with the costly ointment was an 
act of keen-eyed faith. She foresaw the sufferings of 
her Lord. She had laid up His words in her heart, 
while others let them slip or were puzzled by them. 
She had understood the meaning of His repeated 
declaration concerning His own death, and now looked 
sadly, and yet hopefully, upon Him as one soon to 
die a cruel death ; hopefully, I say, for in His proph- 
ecy of His death was included a token of His resur- 
rection. It was because of this clear faith that she 
anointed the Master for His burial, while all the apos- 
tles could do was to murmur at the waste of the pre- 
cious ointment. The few touches that the Gospels 
furnish are enough to reveal in Mary of Bethany, the 
purest, brightest character in the evangelic story. 
She will ever remain a model of all that is fair in the 
self-forgetfulness of a true piety, and her name be 
ever, by His own will and prophecy, joined indisso- 
lubly with the name of Jesus. " Yerily I say unto you 
(are His words), wheresoever this Gospel shall be 
preached throughout the whole world, this also that 
she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of 
her." Glorious distinction ! — blessed fame ! before 
which the trophies of kings and conquerors are 
baubles. 



62 SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 

What was the secret spring of this character? 
"What were the processes by which that heart was 
wrought into so heavenly a shape? Was it only 
Mary of Bethany who could grow so like her Lord, 
or may others find the way ? These are queries that 
start at once in every thoughtful mind. Especially 
will they excite the meditation of those who long for 
holiness, and are earnestly looking hither and thither 
to find its hidden path. Our text conveys the wel- 
come truth that Mary's piety can be gained by all, as 
it shows the simple method of her own soul. 

" She sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word." Oh, 
that the weary truth-seekers might all behold this 
picture ! — those who drag out their lives in works of 
asceticism and penance ; those who scourge their 
souls into the painful observance of ritual and cere- 
mony ; those who wear as a garment the melancholy 
of despair. Here is the Gospel in an outline sketch, 
the lines so few, and yet the grand lesson so complete. 
" She sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word." 

A perfect picture attains its perfection in the sphere 
into which it leads the beholder. The perfection is 
not on the canvas. The artist's power is shown in 
making his canvas the portal by which the mind 
inevitably enters into a garden of truth and beauty, 
that lies beyond the lines and colors of the painting. 
The presentations of Scripture are these perfect pic- 
tures. The uncultured heart will perhaps admire the 
sketch and forget it, while those who are instructed 
in spiritual art will sit down before it, as an appreciat- 
ing connoisseur would sit before the San Sisto Ma- 



SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 63 

donna, and study with appetite and enthusiasm the 
deep thoughts that lie beneath the suggestions of the 
surface. It is not an ingenious invention and accom- 
modation, but a holy instinct, in one sense an inspira- 
tion, that traces these windings of divine truth, and 
that thus makes the Bible all aglow with a celestial 
light. Hence come the joy and the comfort of the 
Scriptures, which have been the meat and drink of 
so many souls as they made pilgrimage through this 
wilderness of vicissitude. Strengthened from this 
source, their grateful and joyful cry has been, " Un- 
less Thy law had been my delights, I should then 
have perished in mine affliction." " I will never for- 
get Thy precepts, for with them Thou hast quickened 
me." " How sweet are Thy words to my taste, yea, 
sweeter than honey to my mouth ! " 

It isn't, then, simply Mary of Bethany sitting at 
Jesus' feet and hearing His word that is set before us 
this evening. It is the person, character, and work 
of our Lord — the relation of Jesus to the human soul 
— the privileges and opportunities of believers ; in 
short, it is the divine life, potential to every one of 
us, which may be seen in this picture by the discern- 
ing eye. So contemplate the scene at Bethany. Put 
yourself in Mary's place. Consider the relations thus 
established between Jesus and yourself. Find sin 
cancelled by the Divine love. See confidence take 
the place of remorse and fear in your heart. Listen 
to the teachings of Him, who is the Truth and Life, 
as well as the "Way. In short, take Mary's method 
and enjoy Mary's sublime experience. The features 



64: SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 

of that scene at Bethany may be repeated wherever 
there is a human heart, whose weakness needs the 
Divine strength and whose sin needs the Divine for- 
giveness. May all our souls accept the thought and 
imitate the example. " She sat at Jesus' feet and heard 
His word." In analyzing this thought, let us first 
consider what the word of Jesus is, and then what is 
implied in the hearing of that word. 

1. What is the word of Jesus f Jesus Christ is the 
same yesterday, to-day, and forever. His appearance 
upon earth for thirty-three years and His ministry of 
teaching and healing for three years are not circum- 
scribed within those temporal limits. The garden 
and the cross are for all time — so are all the scenes 
and facts of that divine life. As a standard is lifted 
up on high in the midst of an extended camp, so that 
every eye from the uttermost border can equally be- 
hold it, so the life of Jesus is lifted up in the midst 
of the ages, belonging equally to all. The lowly peas- 
ant in this nineteenth century appropriates the words 
of Christ, and knows there is no irregularity in the 
act. What Jesus said to Peter or to Mary was intended 
for that peasant as much as it was for Peter or for 
Mary. The word of Jesus is, therefore, in the first 
place, His actual speech to His disciples and others 
in the days of His flesh, intended by Him who is 
present with His every disciple to the end of the 
world, to be the spiritual food of every loving heart. 
But the phrase has a broader signification. The dis- 
pensation of grace has Jesus as its sole author. He 
is the author and finisher of our faith. Prophets and 



SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 65 

apostles were inspired by Him. "No man hath 
seen God at any time — the only-begotten Son who 
is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared 
Him." All that has ever been shown or declared of 
God to man has been shown or declared by Jesus. 
He is the Jehovah of Israel, the Immanuel of the 
Church, the Head over all things to the Church, 
which is His body. The entire life of the Church is 
from Him. He not only opened the way of life, but 
He gave the life itself. The Holy Scriptures, in all 
their fulness and completeness, are His word. As 
the expression of divine truth, they are nothing else 
but the word of Christ. These Scriptures and His 
personal life upon earth are issues of the same love 
and the same purpose. To see prophets and apostles 
as other than the mouth-pieces of Jesus is not to see 
prophets and apostles at all. Sin is one and grace is 
one ; revelation is one and its author is one. From 
Moses to John but one heavenly voice has been heard 
over the waste places of sin, whether it spake from a 
burning mountain or a bloody cross. The angel who 
at Mamre talked with Abraham, and whom he ad- 
dressed as Jehovah, was the same who spake to the 
Pharisees in the temple as a Nazarene. The unity of 
Scripture is because of the one Christ whom it exposes 
and expounds, and from whom it all flows forth as 
from a celestial fountain. The soul that is in harmony 
with God is thrilled by this Christfulness of the Bible. 
It is this which gives to Scripture its exquisite aroma. 
It cannot be described in the language of the world. 
Poetry fails — art spends its efforts on a lower plane. 



66 SITTING AT JESUS FEET. 

It is not the mind — it is the spirit which appreciates 
this divine content of the Sacred Word. The expe- 
rience of disciples knows what argument would fail 
to prove. Can you prove the taste of a peach to 
others by language ? Can logic and oratory combined 
acquaint an audience with the flavor of an orange ? 
" Taste and see " is the only reasonable demand. It 
is tasting which alone can fill you with a sense of the 
wonderful power of Scripture to reveal Jesus to the 
soul. All men are skeptics till they believe. There's 
no middle road. 

But the phrase, " word of Jesus," goes farther 
than even the whole of Scripture. The new life which 
follows the new birth is the Christ-life. It is Christ 
m us. Christ is formed in us. He is our life. The 
outward expression of a Christian life is therefore a 
showing forth of Jesus. To observe and consider the 
goings of a consistent Christian is to listen to the 
word of Jesus. He is the Living Word, and as such, 
He lives in His own disciples. Their lives are His 
speech. By those lives He teaches His church and 
the world. The power of a Christian life is in the 
Christ-presence of that life. It is not the man which 
commands the attention and the respect of even the 
ungodly, but it is the God who has entered that life, 
nay, who is that life. 

So we see that the "word of Jesus" is the actual 
teaching of the man Christ Jesus ; and secondly, the 
whole of Scripture ; and lastly, the real Christian life. 
ISTow how is this word to be heard ? There is a dif- 
ference here. Some hear and scoff ; some hear and 



SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 67 

forget ; some hear and die. There is a hearing which 
renews and glorifies the soul. " Mary sat at Jesui 
feet and heard His word." It is this position which 
qualifies the hearing. 

1. Sitting at Jesus' feet implies a decided and vol- 
untary action. Nobody ever stumbles into truth. 
No one ever gets to heaven by haphazard. The con- 
dition of us all being untruthful and unheavenly, it 
must be a new departure, a positive act of our will, 
that brings us into right relations with God. And 
yet what a common mistake is here touched ! The 
mass of men busy themselves with interests of time, 
and seem to suppose that the spiritual life will take 
care of itself without nursing and even without accept- 
ance. This is to suppose that the spiritual and divine 
life is something to be put on, on the outside, like a 
coat or cloak, and to forget that it is indeed a life, 
demanding the affections and will. The heart that is 
trained through a course of long years to be absorbed 
in worldly gain or ephemeral pleasures, becomes so 
stiffened and hardened in these habits as to make a 
life hid with Christ in God a moral impossibility. A 
man who has wilfully bent himself double for years 
cannot stand straight if he would. Further than 
that, as a mans will is part of the man bent by 
worldly absorption, he will not wish to stand straight. 
The spiritually-crooked man does not realize that he 
is crooked, and does not wish or seek to be straight- 
ened. And yet the position of peace — sitting at Jesus' 
feet — is one gained only by a decision of the will. 

2. Sitting at Jesus' feet implies an appreciation of 



68 SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 

Jesus as the ultimate authority. Many will listen to 
Jesus and say, " How beautiful ! " and then volun- 
teer some correction to His divine teaching. They 
assume a higher knowledge than the Master. They 
talk grandiloquently of Nature's teachings which 
they may interpret in more ways than a Delphic 
oracle, and then winnow the words of Jesus, selecting 
some as quite good, equal to those of Confucius and 
Plato, and setting aside the rest as mistaken. They 
approve of Jesus ; they patronize Jesus ; they use 
His name admiringly. These wise eclectics forget 
that Jesus must be all, or is nothing. They forget 
that Jesus proclaims Himself the Universal Lord and 
Judge, that He asserts His own and only ability to 
give rest for the soul, and that He demands for Him- 
self the highest glory and homage. To call Jesus 
good and then to deny all these positions which He 
assumes is simple self-stultification. These eclectics 
do not sit at Jesus' feet. 

3. Sitting at Jesus' feet implies the use of time for 
listening and learning. God has appointed one- 
seventh of our time for rest from usual worldly 
avocations for the main purpose of our thinking 
directly and earnestly of Him and our relations to 
Him. We know enough of the nature of our minds 
to be aware that unless we have a set time for any 
study, no study is done. The study of God and of 
divine truth is no exception. We have already noticed 
that it will not come from without as if by magic. 
No one else can acquire it for us. We have a day 
especially given. We have a Book especially given. 



SITTING AT JESUS' FEET. 69 

The right use of day and book is the sitting at the 
feet of Jesus. Shall any Martha interfere to keep us 
from this position ? The daily study of God's Word 
made such a happy saint as David. The Christian 
life is weak that does not daily refresh itself at this 
fountain. Gaining money or finding temporal pleas- 
ure must be a very poor substitute for drinking in 
heavenly truth from the fulness of God. Dear 
friends, how can we resist giving time to this glorious 
work, even though we should omit everything else ? 
Take a view of all these things from the future world, 
and judge and act accordingly. I presume one reason, 
yes, the great reason, why we do not sit at Jesus' feet 
to hear His word, is because we cannot believe it is 
so pleasant a place. If we were sure in our hearts 
that it would be so very happy a spot for us, happier 
than any place of honor or riches or worldly pleasure, 
why, then, we should certainly go and take the posi- 
tion. Aye, there's the trouble. Well, let us try the 
position. It is worth trying. So many, like Mary, 
have been there, and wouldn't leave it for worlds. 
Jesus himself invites us so tenderly. It seems so 
reasonable. My dear friends, liable to loss and disap- 
pointment and sorrow — needing the strong hand of 
God, — with a future where money and time-affairs do 
not reach, — I don't think we shall make a mistake if 
we try the position at Jesus' feet, and see for our- 
selves if it be not the gate of heaven. 



BIBLE MEDITATION. 

Psalm i. 2: "In His law doth he meditate day and 

NIGHT." 

Were the unseen world of bliss and woe opened 
to our gaze, we should think of nothing else. The 
most important of our present earthly cares would 
shrink into insignificance and earthly aspirations 
would immediately wither. God has wisely put us, 
while in our probation, out of the sight of the eternal 
world, so that we may attend faithfully to the duties 
which devolve upon us as probationers in a moral 
career, who must grow in moral virtues and gain 
knowledge by an inward working and experience. 
Earthly cares and earthly aspirations are means of 
discipline, and God uses these as the tools of His 
grace whereby He fashions us into spiritual forms of 
life, and it would not do for us to be rid of these. 
And yet we are to be guarded against the extreme of 
earthly absorption. While receiving all the discipline 
that earthly duties convey, we should get what fa- 
miliarity we can with the unseen and eternal. God's 
Word is given us to promote this high knowledge. 
We are to balance one world against the other. We 
are not to deny our earthly surroundings and become 
recluses or ecstatics, nor are we to forget our heavenly 
(70) 



BIBLE MEDITATION. 71 

connections and the presence of God and be a worldly 
people. Now the latter danger is far greater than 
the former. With our fallen natures asserting them- 
selves, and with every form of attractive earth-life 
around us, it is very easy for us to be absorbed in 
worldly interests. The spirit-world is hidden from 
our eyes, not that we should ignore or forget it, but 
that we should use the visible world as our train- 
ing-school. That very object will be frustrated if 
we wholly disregard the eternal world, for the con- 
nection of that world with this is the basis of all true 
instruction and all true growth. 

It being important, therefore, that all of us should 
contemplate the great unseen and eternal realities, so 
far as God in His wisdom has seen fit to reveal them, 
and that revelation being only in His Word, it fol- 
lows that the study of God's Word is the duty of 
every one. For this Word is really the window, the 
only window, out of which we can look and see the 
vast world beyond our senses. There are, it is true, 
chinks and crannies given us in conscience and con- 
sciousness, through which we get vague glimpses of 
incoherent truths, but the Bible furnishes the only 
broad, open window, out from which we can see in 
right proportion the realities that lie beyond the 
sense-world and are most intimately concerned with 
our own life and happiness. Conscience can feel, 
and consciousness can guess, but the feeling of the 
one is vague and the guesses of the other are soon 
confused and inconsistent with each other, so that 
all human philosophies, arising from these sources, 



72 BIBLE MEDITATION. 

are most unsatisfactory to the soul that longs for 
positive knowledge. We must be told by another 
regarding these unseen truths ; we must depend upon 
a higher teaching as little children depend upon a 
parent's word, not endeavoring to evolve the truth 
from ourselves, or even to criticise and modify it as 
we receive it from the higher source. The Word of 
God is thus eminently &nd uniquely the lamp unto 
our feet. That Word, just as David had it, is in the 
Pentateuch. That Word, just as Christ had it, is in 
the Old Testament from Moses to Malachi. That 
Word as we have it is the same exactly as that which 
David and Christ had, with the addition of what in- 
spired apostles and their companions wrote, accord- 
ing to the fulness of the Spirit promised them. The 
Bible is one whole. Its parts are all integral parts. 
The unbelief that assails a single book or a single 
chapter of the Bible assails all the Bible. God has 
given it to the Church as a whole, and has marvellously 
preserved it as a whole, a whole of infinite variety, and 
yet perfectly harmonious in all its parts. Men, hating 
its humiliating truth, have assaulted it with every 
weapon ingenuity could invent for eighteen hundred 
years, and yet have not left a single scar upon it. It 
stands to-day, every word vindicated, every sentence 
solid, every truth brilliant. It carries its own witness 
in its perfect endurance and continuous triumphs, as 
well as in its precious truths that meet the pressing 
needs of every human heart. 

This Word of God, as given by Him for our 
guidance, is styled God's law. From beginning to 



BIBLE MEDITATION. 73 

end it has to do with the methods of divine love in 
saving man from his sins. Eedemption and its his- 
tory form the subject of the sacred volume. It is 
thus a law in the highest sense, a chart of life, a 
portrayal of means to life's noblest ends. Human 
law deals only with outward actions, but God's holy 
law touches the region of thought and affection, 
where the roots of the man are found. It lays bare 
the heart and reveals its diseases, and prescribes the 
only remedy for its desperate condition. That law 
lays open to our eyes all of the unseen world that we 
need for our guidance here, but not so much as to 
paralyze our activity or check our discipline in this 
world of training and probation. We need there- 
fore to use this law of God with great diligence, 
that its full power may be felt in our souls. We 
need to use it to the utmost as a balance against the 
carnal and earthly things that are apt to absorb all 
our attention. The greatest saints took this position. 
Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David, all the prophets and 
apostles, emphasized the Word, the revealed and 
written Word — in other words, the Law ; and their 
own lives, with such as those of Apollos and Timothy, 
were illustrations of the power of the Word to up- 
hold and maintain the integrity of the godly life 
against the attractions of sin and sense. 

It is meditation on this holy Word that character- 
izes the exemplary child of God. So he is repre- 
sented by the Psalmist, as not only avoiding the 
companionship of ungodly men, but also making 
positive and perpetual explorations in the Scriptures. 



f 4 BIBLE MEDITATION. 

" In His law doth he meditate day and night." I 
know not any one thing which so defines the differ- 
ence between the Christian and the world as the 
relation of each to the Bible. The Bible is a very 
dry and uninteresting book to the worldly heart. 
With quite a proud emotion it styles it utter stu- 
pidity. To spend any length of time over it would 
be insufferable, and the idea of meditating on it day 
and night is incomprehensible. Yet that same Word 
thus honestly despised by the worldly heart is the 
precious treasure of the godly heart. The warm- 
hearted believer finds there his daily refreshing and 
strength. He could no more bear the thought of 
being without his Bible than could a traveller in the 
desert bear the thought of being without his jar of 
water. He is never driven to the Word by con- 
science. He never reluctantly takes it up as a dead 
weight. He never sighs over Bible-reading as an 
imposed task. He flies to the Word as his refuge. 
He goes to it as to an old haunt of love and peace, 
where he has been accustomed to meet his Lord and 
enjoy His grace. 

I say again, that I know no one thing which so 
defines the difference between the Christian and 
the world as the relation of each to the Bible. 
Happy is the man who has this testimony to his 
divine sonship, that he loves the Word of God. 
He is described in our text as meditating on that 
Word day and night, that is, it is his constant com- 
panion and counsellor. He does not abandon the 
many duties of life, nor does he refuse the needed 



BIBLE MEDITATION. 75 

hours of sleep in order to devote himself to its 
study — that is not intended — but he is so fond of it, 
and so full of it, that his memory refreshes him with 
it even in those waking hours when he is not actually 
engaged in its formal study. At his business tasks, 
in his daily walks, in his loneliness upon his bed, and 
even when in the enjoyments of social intercourse, 
the Word of God mingles with all his thoughts, and 
gives a heavenly flavor to all his experience. The 
word translated " meditate " has as its original sig- 
nification the idea of muttering to oneself, as we do 
when we are studying or revolving a subject in our 
minds. We talk with the subject (as it were) — not 
talk of it. We thus become intimate with it, and 
can then wisely talk of it. Many persons talk of the 
Bible who are not at all intimate with it, who never 
talked with it, talking to it and letting it talk to 
them. Such persons never meditated on God's Word. 
Then again there are others who are only intimate 
with the letter — they have meditated on the letter ; 
but the letter is not the Word of God. The letter 
is only the vehicle of the Word of God. The Word 
of God is the spiritual truth that touches the heart. 
Meditating on God's law is an exercise that only 
regards the letter as it reveals the spirit beneath. 
Bible history, Bible geography, Bible archaeology, 
Bible linguistics are all exceedingly useful and im- 
portant, but no amount of knowledge of these makes 
meditation on God's law. We sadly misuse all these 
departments of learning unless we make them the 
means of finding the mind of the Spirit, as speaking 



76 BIBLE MEDITATION. 

to our inmost souls. With these thoughts we can 
add — 

1. That meditation, though not itself study, im- 
plies study. There must be the preliminary close 
application, the careful examination, the comparison 
of Scripture with Scripture. This requires time 
specially set apart, and it requires solitude so far as 
we can get it. There are very few who cannot get 
some minutes alone every day for this holy exercise. 
Most persons can readily get an hour each day, if 
only they set their minds to it. Most persons have 
no difficulty in getting an hour for some personal 
indulgence. If their hearts were right on the sub- 
ject of their relation to God and His truth, they 
would find and eagerly seize the time for this 
heavenly exercise. Does any one ask, " How shall 
I study the Bible ? " let me answer, that with a good 
Bible Dictionary, a Concordance, and Marginal Refer- 
ences you are fully prepared for the work. Read the 
Scripture in regular course, dwell upon its utter- 
ances, keep clear its connections, and be your own 
interpreter and commentator. This will be doing 
what Christ enjoins. It will be "searching the 
Scriptures." 

2. Meditation upon God's Word implies a thought- 
ful pondering upon our own lives. The meditation 
on God's Word is not a meaningless reverie — it's a 
thinking, it's the application of that Word to our- 
selves, and this, of course, involves a view of our- 
selves, — not a self-dissection, not an examination into 
motive and feeling, which we are utterly incompetent 



BIBLE MEDITATION. 77 

to make, — but a general view of our deficiencies and 
failures, and a special view of God's constant and 
abounding mercies. The Christian heart is both 
astonished and melted when it begins to recount the 
loving-kindness of the Lord, and this recounting is 
but the reflection of its meditation on the Word. 

3. Meditation on God's Word is a form of walk- 
ing with God. In the Psalm of our text, the blessed 
man, instead of walking, standing, and sitting with 
the wicked, meditates on God's law. This is the 
walking, standing, and sitting with all that is good, 
with God himself, in complete contrast to the former 
picture. It accustoms the mind to holy thoughts, it 
fills it with righteous arguments, it strengthens it 
against earthly adversities, it forms around the man 
an atmosphere of heavenly peace with which he lives 
in the midst of the world's troubles. The soul that 
meditates on God's Word is in the closest intimacy 
with God, for our spiritual washing is by the Word — 
the discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart 
is that Word. We were born again by the Word, 
and our Saviour says to the Father as the mark of 
His nearness to His disciples, " I have given them 
Thy Word." Thus that Word is connected with all 
our highest and holiest experiences before God. 

4. Meditation on God's Word is our security 
against spiritual coldness and worldliness. When 
Satan tempted our Saviour, His refuge was the Word 
of God, the Bible. Thence drew He the arms with 
which to defeat and drive off the adversary of souls. 
It is the same for us as for Him. When we are 



78 BIBLE MEDITATION. 

saturated with Scripture we are impervious to the 
seductions of sin. Temptations surprise careless 
Christians. They find them off their guard. The 
truth that should be serviceable for the occasion is 
not at hand, and hence, in place of this, there is a 
parleying, a compromising, a yielding, which de- 
grades the soul in spiritual rank and shrinks it in 
spiritual capacity. The low-ranked, weak-faithed, 
limping, stumbling Christians would present a far 
different aspect, if they had been faithful to God's 
Word. Having voluntarily cut themselves off from 
the supply of health and vigor, they only know a 
sickly and feeble Christianity. They are stained 
with worldly folly, and they fail of heavenly enjoy- 
ments. 

Brethren, in view of our subject, have we not 
new resolutions to make to-day? Is the Bible to be 
any longer neglected ? Are we to be satisfied with 
getting here and there a verse, something snatched 
up at random, while we lay out our main strength 
and regard to earthly things ? Is this the way that 
God's revelation should be treated by His children ? 
Was it for this that it was given ? 

Infidels call us Bibliolaters, or worshippers of a 
book. We do not worship a book, but we worship 
a God, who has given us a book, and told us to use 
it constantly as the only interpreter of His holy will. 
And we know that our worship of that God is a 
defective and doubtful worship, if we do not thus 
use the book He has so solemnly given us. We 
know that meditation on that Word will keep us 



BIBLE MEDITATION. 79 

from errors and difficulties, and is the only real safe- 
guard against the deceitfulness of our own hearts 
and the thousand false theories that a mere human 
philosophy suggests. We know, moreover, that 
meditation on that Word reveals more clearly the 
countenance of Jesus our Lord and Saviour, and in 
this way the entrance of the Word giveth light — the 
light of knowledge, of peace, and of joy. Are we 
not willing to be the people of the Book, when the 
Book is the very representative of the thoughts of 
the Most High to us-ward? — See the inspired de- 
scription : " He shall be like a tree planted by the 
rivers of water, that bringeth forth its fruit in its 
season ; its leaf also shall not wither ; and whatso- 
ever he doeth shall prosper." This God says of the 
man who meditates day and night on God's holy 
Word. 



THE LIFE OF PRAYER. 

Ephesians vi. 18 : " Praying always with all prayer." 

If prayer have the definition which it has in most 
men's minds, and if men of the average character 
hear this injunction of the apostle, the words would 
suggest a dreary prospect. A life of prayer would 
seem to them a life of penance. Only sadness and 
gloom would be associated with the idea. Praying 
might be tolerated at certain emergencies, as a bitter 
medicine might be swallowed in a critical disease ; but 
praying always, and that too with all prayer, leaves 
no margin for comfort or happiness. And yet this 
melancholy view of the prayerful life is all of a piece 
with the ordinary view men take of religion and 
everything that pertains to their just relations toward 
God. The natural heart is enmity with God, and 
hence all forms of communion with God are repulsive. 
With this fact constantly existing, they will neverthe- 
less deny that they are enemies to God, and consider 
such an allegation as a slander upon their character. 
Most men actually think they are on good terms with 
the Almighty, while they sedulously avoid all that 
would distinctively bring them near to Him. They 
fail to see in their blindness that this alienation of 
theirs is the very essence of hostility. Their assumed 
(80) 



THE LIFE OF PRAYER. 81 

independence of God is the waging war against God, 
the overthrow of all His government, as far as they 
are able to effect this; the disturbance of all the 
relations which He has established as their all-wise and 
all-merciful Creator and Preserver. A man has not 
to commit murder to be a rebel against even human 
authority ; neither has a man to be a gross offender in 
palpable vice to be an enemy to God. Disobedience 
here is rebellion, and a life founded on a system of 
disobedience is a rebellious life. Where you find a 
man who (as the Scripture phrases it) has not God 
in all his thoughts, there you find an open enemy of 
the Most High, and his beautiful traits of character 
and admired position in society cannot save him from 
the hands of infinite justice and a rebel's doom. The 
matter of prayer is one of many tests of such a 
condition. The prayerless man is in the hostile camp- 
If he were the friend of God, he would draw near 
Him and speak to Him. Nay, he would search for 
Him, if he could not find Him. Much rather would 
he run to Him, when he saw His arms outstretched to 
receive him in the Gospel of His Son. Not to pray 
is to despise that Gospel, — to prefer nature, and that 
a depraved nature, too. Marvellous is the stupidity 
of man, that, after a life thus spent in avoiding 
God, he will complacently suppose it will all be well 
with him at last, — that his confirmed course of god- 
lessness will become by the change of death a course 
of godfulness, if I may use the expression. What 
magic has death to change his character ? Is death a 
gospel? Or, is heaven a place for God's enemies? 



82 THE LIFE OF PRAYER. 

But, leaving this strange case of the mass of men, let 
us talk with Christians of that which is their highest 
joy— communion with God. Let us divide our sub- 
ject according to the apostle's phraseology. 

I. " Praying P What is it? 1. It is a heart- 
exercise. Words play only a subordinate part. Groan- 
ings that cannot be uttered may be prayer. I say 
" may be," for the Scripture does not mean that all 
groaning is prayer. There may be the groan of pain, 
the groan of discontent, the groan of selfishness, and 
surely there is no prayer in such. The Scriptures 
refer to the Spirit's movement in the soul of man, 
where an intelligent and yet undefinable longing God- 
wards is found. And yet, while words may not be 
necessary in prayer, the rational man is so constituted 
that words are most helpful to a praying heart, and it 
will use them when it can. It is only a sort of 
spiritual indolence that would wilfully dispense with 
words in prayer. There may be true spiritual emotions 
that defy utterance, but the most of a believer's con- 
templations and petitions find natural illustration and 
expression in language. But the language should 
ever wait upon the heart. Detached from the heart's 
feeling, it is but mockery. The Lord takes no pleasure 
in our mere words, but He does take pleasure in the 
movements of our hearts toward Him. It is this 
thought that should make us watchful against the 
formality of routine, the meaningless use of set 
phrases, which is a mechanical travesty of prayer. 
Every word should have the heart's stamp upon it, 
and so it will be acceptable to God. 



THE LIFE OF PRAYER. 83 

2. Prayer is a duty. We are not left to choose 
whether we should pray or not. Prayer is part of 
the economy of grace. The first mark of a Chris- 
tian is "Behold, he prayeth." The obedience of 
the soul to God is shown in this position. All 
God's grace to man comes by the asking, and 
the asking is but expressed faith. God's primal 
command to the sinner, " Come," is answered by 
prayer. And the same principle which begins the 
Christian life continues to sustain and develop it. 
The heart comes to God for all. But while prayer is 
thus enjoined by God, we never hear God telling us 
to pray a given number of times a day, or to pray for 
such or such a length of time. All that kind of in- 
junction belongs to man-made religions like Moham- 
medanism and Popery. God commands us to pray, 
but He leaves the modes of prayer to the guidance of 
that blessed Spirit who is given to every believer. 
There is a Christian liberty here as elsewhere, which 
we are to use, while we are careful not to make it an 
occasion to the flesh. Prayer is a duty, but to a 
Christian, duty involves no idea of compulsion ; for 

3. Prayer is & privilege. It is by no natural right 
that we go to God. Our natural condition banishes 
us from Him altogether. The approach to God by 
the soul is the result of God's miracle of grace. All 
the wonders of Bethlehem and Calvary were wrought 
to bring it about. It is a blood- bought privilege. It 
is the opening of the Kings palace to aliens who are 
made children. It is a gift whose dimensions no 
created mind can calculate. The sense of the privilege 



84 THE LIFE OF PRAYER. 

will be proportioned to our view of our sinfulness. 
" Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord ! " 
is the natural cry of one who recognizes the contrast 
between himself and a holy God. When grace meets 
that natural cry with the exhibition of a loving 
covenant between the sinner and his Saviour, then 
the delighted heart exclaims, " I love the Lord be- 
cause He hath heard my voice and my supplications. 
Because He hath inclined His ear unto me, therefore 
will I call upon Him as long as I live." " What shall 
I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward 
me ? I will take the cup of salvation and call upon 
the name of the Lord." Unless God's grace is 
recognized there can be no true prayer. To speak to 
God on any other basis is fearful presumption. For 
an unrepentant sinner to speak to God is an act of 
gross hostility, for he endeavors to thrust his sin- 
covered soul into the holy presence of the Majesty of 
Heaven. It is a high privilege, the highest of all 
privileges, that he is usurping, and one which is only 
accorded to the penitent heart. 

4. Prayer is the confident action of communion 
with God. It is not a tentative, or test, or experiment. 
It is not a groping in the dark. It is true that little 
faith may reduce it to these proportions, but just so 
far the prayer is defective. In its normal character, 
prayer is a complete leaning on God. It reposes 
upon promises that can never fail and a divine love 
that cannot be measured. The child nestles not 
more securely in the mother's arms than the soul 
commits itself with assurance to the Lord in prayer. 



THE LIFE OF PRAYER. 85 

It has to go through no process of reasoning, but the 
Spirit beareth witness with it that it is dealing with a 
tender and yet Almighty Father. The wavering soul 
does not pray. We are to "ask in faith (says the 
Scripture), nothing wavering, for he that wavereth is 
like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and 
tossed. For let not that man think that he shall 
receive anything of the Lord." It is this confidence 
of prayer which gives it its crowning charm. 

II. Praying always, says the apostle. Here surely 
a condition rather than action is designated. An 
action terminates, but this prayer is to continue. Or, 
if we call it an action, it is an action that includes the 
whole life. It indicates a constant need and a con- 
stant supply. We are ever to be found waiting on 
the Lord. The outward form of prayer may be inter- 
mittent, but the essential prayer is to be perpetual. 
To use the distinction made just now, the prayerful 
condition may at times be crystallized into formal 
action, which we specially call prayer, but the life of 
the soul in communion with God is essentially a life 
of prayer. It is constantly in an asking and receiving 
attitude. It would not have this bond of union with 
the Saviour sundered for a moment, for all its help 
comes from Him. Without Him it can do nothing. 
Praying always is enjoying always the fulness of the 
Redeemer's bounties. To have this communication 
choked between heaven and the soul would be to feel 
want and weakness. Montgomery but expresses the 
truth as felt by every earnest believer, " Prayer is the 
Christian's vital breath, the Christian's native air." 



86 THE LIFE OF PRAYER. 

The continuity of prayer is but another name for the 
continuity of spiritual life. This continuity is inter- 
rupted most sadly by the wilful permission given by 
the Christian to let the world come into his heart and 
exercise a motive power there. The Christian who 
is spending his time and energy to amass the world's 
wealth is not praying. The Christian who is flutter- 
ing like a moth around the candles of fashion is not 
praying. The Christian who is full of schemes for 
this life, and puts the things of God aside, is not 
praying. The rich rewards of the Christian life are 
enjoyed by few, because few are praying always. 
Now, it is very often the case that those who pray 
occasionally do not pray at all. The one who prays 
without ceasing offers a spiritual service, but the 
pray-er on occasion is apt to be a formalist. When a 
Christian can say, " I have set the Lord always before 
me," then he can add, " because He is at my right 
hand, I shall not be moved." Instead of such con- 
tinual praying being dreary, it is the very source 
of refreshing and joy. It is the very cause of the 
Christian's cheerful spirit and happy life. He is 
drawn to the mercy-seat as a bee to the flower. The 
instincts of the divine life move him thither. God 
does not wish in us a forced and artificial life. There 
is neither religion nor salvation in such a life. He 
wishes us to wear an easy yoke and lift a light burden, 
while the godless world wears the hard yoke and 
heavy burden. And so He gives us a new nature, 
and, according to this new nature, this praying always 
is most natural. But many who are gifted with the 



THE LIFE OF PRAYER. 87 

new nature strangle it by their indulgence of the old. 
They do not use the liberty of the children of God, 
and hence their service is servile and not filial. The 
Christian who prays always is the Christian who 
feels his heavenly citizenship, whose life is not to be 
measured by outward appearances, because his life is 
hid with Christ entirely out of the world's sight. 
The man who is conversing through the cable with 
his friend in London cannot be understood or de- 
scribed in his action, by the unlettered boor at his side. 
What a complete misconception the peasant would 
have of the man's thoughts and employment, as he 
sat fingering the electric machine ! And this is but a 
feeble image of the utter inconceivableness of the 
always praying life to the ordinary worldly mind. 
But 

III. Praying always with all prayer. This is a 
Grecism for " all manner of prayer," or " every kind 
of prayer." Prayer, then, may be of different kinds. 
The difference is not, of course, in its essential char- 
acter, for all prayer must be at the core communion 
with God, but in its modes of exercise. We have 
seen how the prayerful life will at times crystallize 
itself into seasons of withdrawal from all else but 
God, when, face to face with Him, it "orders its 
cause " before Him, and arranges thoughts of praise 
and gratitude, of penitence and confession, of need 
and petition, of joy and thanksgiving. To these 
seasons we are accustomed to circumscribe the appel- 
lation of prayer. But when the apostle speaks of 
praying always and with all prayer, he is leading us 



88 THE LIFE OF PRAYER. 

into a wider field of observation, and showing us how 
in much else than the bowed knee and earnest words 
the spirit of prayer may be resident. Cornelius, the 
centurion, was told that his alms had come up as a 
memorial before God. We are also told by the in- 
spired Word " to do good, and to communicate forget 
not, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." 
The Scripture is full of like passages, showing that 
the acts of kindness performed by us as to God are 
direct acts of communion with Him. There is no 
gaining heaven by works in this. Such a doctrine is 
an absurdity. Our salvation is all of grace. But 
there is in this a gracious effect. There is in true 
alms-giving (the real helpfulness of Christian activity) 
an enlargement of the spiritual life, a spreading of its 
branches and leaves by the action of its thrifty tendrils. 
It is a movement to and with God. It is in this high 
sense that it is rightly said, " Giving is worship." 
When Christ says, " Ye did it unto me," He is de- 
scribing one form of approaching Him, one action of 
the renewing Spirit, one of the many kinds of prayer. 
Now this sort of prayer is certainly no substitute for 
the other ; but again, neither is the other a substitute 
for this. Both motions of the soul Godward are 
needed and demanded by the new life which Christ 
gives. The Philippian Christians were behind none 
in the prayer of words, but Paul praises them for 
their readiness to send far away to Rome for his help 
and comfort when a prisoner. He says, " I am full, 
having received of Epaphroditus the things which 
were sent from you, an odor of a sweet smell, a 



THE LIFE OP PRAYER. 89 

sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God." These 
good works were equally a communion with God as 
were their verbal prayers, for they were both done 
under the Spirit's prompting, and were the action of 
their godly walk. This was one of their acceptable 
sacrifices ; the calves of their lips were another. All 
effort under the recognized providence of God is 
prayer. It is prayer put into action. If I long to 
help a brother, I pray with my whole being and not 
only with my lips. Every activity put forth in the 
direction of any godly aim is justly prayer. 

Now, if in the light of these considerations, we read 
the apostle's injunction, " Praying always with all man- 
ner of prayer," we see there depicted a life so spent in 
communion with God, that all its exercises are done 
to God, presented to Him as offerings of faith. Let 
me not for a moment be supposed by any to uphold 
the sentimental statement of vapory religionists that 
working is praying — that is, that any act of kindness 
toward another is a prayer to God, and therefore all 
direct petition is unnecessary. It is only the working 
that is done in the spirit of faith and obedience to 
God's holy will that is prayer, and this never as a 
substitute for, but as a result from, the prayer of 
direct petition. 

Now, my fellow-believers, just as our lives come 
short of this picture submitted to us by the apostle, 
just so far we are marring Christ's work in our 
regeneration, and just so far as we do this, we are 
interfering with our peace and our power. Living 
unto God (Rom. vi. 11) and living with Christ (1 Thess. 



90 THE LIFE OF PRAYER. 

v. 10) are Scripture expressions denoting the true 
Christian life. The formula, which each of us ought 
to be able to adopt, is this — " The life which I now 
live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God." 
What is preventing this declaration on the part of 
any one of us ? Whatever does, is making us restrain 
prayer. What is it ? Is it hard to tell ? I think not. 
One answer will do for us all. It is a divided heart. 
Our Lord has not His full place in our affections, and 
hence the Spirit has not full sway in our lives. Surely 
it is not strange that the lives of Christians should be 
so poor a recommendation of Christ to the world. 
The Christian life is sustained only by prayer. The 
praying should, therefore, be constant. Now, if the 
praying be intermittent, what may we expect of the 
life? The world will not look on the moments of 
fervor and faith, and judge of the Christian from 
those, but will look at the periods of worldliness, when 
the connection with Jesus is cut off, and draw its 
inferences of Christ and His disciples from these. — 
But apart from the effect on the world, why should 
we deny ourselves the unspeakably rich enjoyments of 
a life drawing every moment its fresh strength from 
our God and Saviour? Why should we let the 
illusions of a false world rob us of our divine in- 
heritance in Christ ? Let us dig the ditch deep and 
broad between us and the world, so that there shall 
be no crossing nor thought of crossing; let us be 
jealous for Christ against any interference with our 
union with Him, and let us have the full of comfort 
in the Lord's grace by praying always with all prayer. 



GIVING. 

Proverbs xi. 25 : " The liberal soul shall be made pat." 

The Proverbs of Solomon are just as truly God's 
inspired word as are the books of Moses. They are 
part of the same blessed Bible. It was left for the 
marvellous sages of modern times to pick the Old 
Testament to pieces, and tell us that there were all 
degrees of inspiration in its books, and in many of 
them none at all. The apostles and our Lord knew 
nothing about this, but quoted all the books alike and 
referred Christians to them as constituting one solid 
and immaculate authority ; but Ewald and his follow- 
ers have, under the higher inspiration of their own 
consciousness, found how thoroughly mistaken our 
Lord was. These modern sages talk as if they lived 
themselves personally all down the ages from Moses 
onward, and had been present when every line of 
Scripture was written. They have a glib language 
about an Elohist and a Jehovist, a Deuteronomist, the 
five narrators of the Pentateuch, the pseudo-Isaiah, 
the book of Origins, the book of Covenants, all of 
which they take to be very learned, while our talk 
about the books of Moses and Joshua is very childish 
and absurd, and shows that we are not fit to approach 
their Olympus of wisdom. These mighty men will 

(91) 



92 GIVING. 

take Genesis, for example, and put their finger on 
what A wrote, and B wrote, and C wrote, and D 
wrote, and E wrote. They'll tell you that chap, xxxiv. 
1-4 is by A, but ver. 5 is not. A, however, again 
writes from ver. 6 to ver. 8. Then you don't see him 
again till ver. 16, when he appears as the writer once 
more as far as ver. 23. In this way with their mar- 
vellous penetration they make Genesis and every other 
book a confused mass of patch- work clumsily sewed 
together, and about as valuable as a looking-glass 
broken into a thousand pieces. 

It is a good thing, brethren, that these men have 
made such arrant fools of themselves that but a few 
are likely to be led astray by them. The same pro- 
cesses of argumentation that they use would prove 
that the Declaration of Independence was written by 
twenty different persons in different ages, nay, they 
would prove that the letter you wrote to your friend 
yesterday was a conglomerate from a dozen different 
authors. It is refreshing to turn from these muddled 
brains and hear the words of our Lord Jesus, " Search 
the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, 
and they are they which testify of me "; and again, 
" These are the words which I spake unto you, while I 
was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which 
were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, 
and in the psalms, concerning me "; and still again to 
hear Him thwart Satan by quoting this very Deuter- 
onomy (that these Ewalds sneer at as the work of some 
late and lying Deuteronomist) with the solemn formula, 
" It is written." This appeal to Scripture was final. 



GIVING. 93 

Now we have the Old Testament books precisely 
as our Lord had them, no less, no more. All of these 
rationalists have to agree to that. " Proverbs " with 
us is just what "Proverbs" was with the apostle 
when he quoted it in this manner: "Ye have for- 
gotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as 
unto children, i My son, despise not thou the chasten- 
ing of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of 
Him, for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and 
scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.' " The 
apostle had no doubt of the Scripture he quoted, 
which has been a comfort to millions ever since. So 
I would have you note that our text, "The liberal 
soul shall be made fat," is a part of the Word of God, 
as much as anything else in the Bible, and that it is 
one of the precious promises of the many exceeding 
great and precious promises which are given to us for 
our guidance and our joy. 

Let us with this understanding seek to obtain its 
instruction. 

God is speaking to His people. He sees their 
varied characters and conditions. He knows the per- 
plexities and trials of all. He, like a kind father, 
seeks not only their ultimate good, but their present 
welfare. He has not only provided for them the 
pardon of sin and eternal life in His Son, but He has 
ordered all things to minister to their good, even the 
angels of heaven. He furnishes us not only with a 
salvation, but with a philosophy of life. He shows 
us how we may avoid difficulties and distresses by a 
godly prudence. He would have us study the details 



94 GIVING. 

of living and Hx upon certain principles of conduct 
with regard to all the special conditions of human 
intercourse. And it is that Christian who most 
strictly adheres to these divine principles whose life 
is the serenest and whose influence is most blessed. 
Our text is one of these utterances of divine wisdom, 
very different in its character from the dicta of 
worldly philosophers or the views of most men. 
The ordinary teaching among men runs this way : 
" Hoarding will make a big pile." " Take care of 
Number One." " I'll not do anything for posterity ; 
posterity never did anything for me." And the qual- 
ity of mind that follows these maxims is known gen- 
erally in the world with commendation as acuteness, 
shrewdness, and financial wisdom. Now the Bible 
does not condemn a just regard for personal interests. 
It does not approve of carelessness of self and family, 
or of lavish expenditure. It recognizes the fact that 
the workman is worthy of his hire, and therefore 
commends his taking care of himself. It teaches 
frugality, industry, and proper provision for those 
dependent upon us. But any one will see that all 
this is very far from the worldly principle of amass- 
ing with a single eye to self. With all its teachings 
of financial prudence, the Bible adds such important 
maxims as that of our text, " The liberal soul shall be 
made fat." Akin to it is that which immediately pre- 
cedes, " There is that scattereth and yet increaseth ; 
and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but 
it tendeth to poverty." 

The being made fat is a thoroughly Oriental ex- 



GIVING. 95 

pression for personal ease and comfort, the real (and 
not apparent) prosperity of the life on earth. It does 
not necessarily refer to riches, for very often riches 
are by no means a blessing, but it certainly does refer 
to temporal well-being. It is a mistake to suppose 
that God has not promised earthly blessings to His 
children. The Bible is full of promises of this sort, 
and the reason they are not more often enjoyed is 
because their conditions are not fulfilled. We are 
told that if we seek first the kingdom of God all 
these earthly benefits will be added to us. We are 
promised our food and clothing. We are promised 
long life upon the earth. We are promised protection 
amid dangers. And it is a false exegesis that takes 
all the meaning out of these promises, and makes 
them no more than human guesses, as likely to be 
wrong as right. Godliness has the promise of the 
life that now is as well as of that which is to come, 
and this enjoyment of the life which now is cannot 
concern simply our subjective state, but must involve 
those objective realities on which our subjective state 
partly depends. If we could see a perfect Christian 
life, we should see a life crowned with earthly bless- 
ings, not, as I said before, with riches or worldly 
honors, but with the more solid elements of a healthy 
comfort. Kot that trials would be excluded, for 
whom the Lord loveth He chasten eth, and even a 
perfect Christian life on earth would need chastening, 
but the life as a whole would be a life of peace and 
prosperity. 

The " being made fat " has reference, doubtless, to 



96 GIVING. 

pecuniary ease. The same thing which is scattered 
increases. There is the operation of a lex talionis in 
the matter. As we deal with others, so will we be 
dealt with. With what measure we mete, it will be 
measured to us again. 

Now, who is the liberal soul ? It is not the man 
who faithfully and honorably pays his debts and per- 
forms his contracts, but one who goes beyond all that 
law and strict right demand, with an overflow to the 
account of love and sympathy. So also there is a 
comparison with a man's whole estate which forms 
an element in our definition of the word liberal. He 
must not only give more than the law requires, but 
he must give according to his ability. It is no lib- 
erality in a man who has an income of a hundred 
thousand dollars a year to give ten thousand dollars a 
year in charities. A man with a hundred thousand a 
year who gives away only ten thousand, while he lays 
up sixty thousand or eighty thousand, is a mean man. 
He has not the first idea of liberality in his heart. 
The man who has only a thousand a year and gives 
ten dollars in charity is much nearer the definition of 
liberal than the rich man alluded to. The latter only 
gives a trifling portion of his superfluity. The former 
gives from his restricted means of support. The lib- 
eral soul, therefore, is not merely the one that gives, 
but the one that gives liberally on the scale of his 
resources. Liberality is to be reckoned comparatively 
and not absolutely. Another error we must avoid on 
the other side, although the caution here is not so 
necessary as in the direction alluded to. It is not 



GIVING 97 

liberality to run into debt in one's giving, for then 
you're giving away what does not belong to you, and 
liberality is the giving away of one's own. For the 
same reason it is not liberality to make promises to 
give, when you have no reasonable expectation of ever 
paying the money, for in this case you must either 
borrow in order to pay, or else break your word. 

But the question may arise, " Can a man be too 
liberal ? " The answer is, " In spirit, no ; but in prac- 
tice, yes." That is, the soul can never be too liberal, 
for liberality, in the last analysis, is love. But a lib- 
eral soul may act unwisely in bestowing pecuniary 
blessings on others. He may not sufficiently regard 
the condition of the recipient. He may be encourag- 
ing idleness, or confirming some pernicious habit in 
the person he helps. Or, on the other hand, he may 
not sufficiently regard the claims of his own house- 
hold, or the demands rightfully made upon his purse 
by other considerations besides those of love for indi- 
vidual men or causes. It is not often, however, that 
we find this excess of liberality. The trouble all lies 
in the other direction. The Church of Christ has 
millions upon millions that it ought to spend in benefit- 
ing the physically and spiritually needy every year, 
which its members now hoard up in order to amass 
large fortunes, or spend on unworthy objects. The 
worldly-minded do this, and the children of God fol- 
low suit. Now let the representatives of this class 
give their thousands as a conscience-fee to some good 
cause, and that will not put them among the liberal. 
The liberal soul does not seek to be rich, but to be a 



98 GIVING. 

blessing to others. This is the very opposite principle 
from that of seeking to be rich. The two are ex- 
clusive of one another. You cannot possibly have 
both. Are you trying to be rich ? Then you never 
can be liberal. You may try to lay by something for 
family support and still be liberal, but the moment 
you lay by in order to be rich the tap-root of liberal- 
ity is cut, and all your giving after that will be on 
some low human system or want of system. People 
may merely look at the sums you give and call you a 
great giver, but nevertheless you are not liberal, and 
the promise of the text does not belong to you. More- 
over, the liberal soul is never pecuniarily exacting. 
He does not demand the pound of flesh, however 
legal it may be. Sometimes the law allows very un- 
righteous deeds. The rich landlord who exacts the 
rent from a poor widow by the sale of her chattels is 
acting in accordance with law and justifies himself on 
that ground, but he is none the less an unrighteous 
oppressor of the poor, whom the Lord has promised 
to avenge. Who made the adage, " Business is busi- 
ness," and under its cover drove out love and mercy 
from all pecuniary transactions ? Surely not the Lord 
Jesus, under whose guidance we walk. It is one 
thing to resist imposition, the preying upon your 
bounty by a false plea, but it is another thing to have 
a genuine case of unexpected inability to pay you 
rent. The latter is a direct appeal of Providence to 
you for kindness and liberality. Do you ask why 
you should thus virtually pay her rent any more than 
others? Simply because in the providence of God 



GIVING. 99 

she happens to be your tenant and is thus brought 
into a special relation of dependence upon you. The 
principle of never gleaning the corners of the field is 
that of God's liberal-souled servant. He makes due 
allowance for the poor both in all his payments and 
in all his receipts. But the object of the liberal soul 
being the good of others, this good does not end with 
temporal blessings. The godly heart sees that all real 
and permanent good is in godliness. Hence the de- 
sire to bring the Gospel of salvation to men every- 
where. The liberal soul responds to every call to 
assist man's eternal welfare, according to its ability. 
It never waits to be pressed and urged. It is always 
ready on the first notification of need. It has its 
store to give away, and only desires to find the best 
objects on which to bestow it. It takes delight in 
giving, and so appreciates the Master's testimony, " It 
is more blessed to give than to receive." It does not 
count giving a self-denial, nor does it make a merit of 
it. It gives because it loves to give — it belongs to its 
nature to give — it takes pleasure in sowing seed for 
happy harvests. 

Now, from this description of the liberal soul, we 
can readily see that liberal souls are not plenty. Men, 
Christian men, generally give stingily, grudgingly, and 
when they give a very little, feel that they have done 
some great thing. To such there is no promise that 
they shall be made fat. A genuine comfort in the 
external life they are not promised. Nor do they get 
it. Their narrowness is always wounding themselves. 
Their souls become withered and dry. The very 



100 GIVING. 

money which, if freely given, would have fattened 
them, by keeping back, has made them lean. Law- 
suits and losses lie in wait for the mean. If you 
refrain from giving in a godly way, the Lord will 
make holes in your money-bags, and the money will 
go in a far less noble and satisfactory way. 

And now, a few hints as to the way in which Chris- 
tians should give, so as to encourage their souls to 
liberality. 

1. Give regularly. All virtues should be system- 
atic. But by that we do not mean mechanical. 
The actions have no virtue in them if they have no 
feeling. But system can consist with true feeling. 
We should set aside a certain amount for our gifts as 
regularly as for our food and clothes. The apostle 
prescribed for the churches of Corinth and Galatia a 
weekly laying-by of amounts for gifts, and gives as a 
reason his objection to a spasmodic effort when he 
should arrive. The gifts thus bestowed come both 
larger and from a deeper principle of liberality. 
Such a system, moreover, makes the bestowal a more 
hearty affair, free from all drawbacks of selfishness. 

2. Give a fixed percentage of income. But note 
two things in this — first, that the percentage should 
not be the same with every income. Ten per cent, 
may be a very fair proportion with some incomes, 
but with other incomes fifty per cent, is very small. 
The size of one's family for whom he is to provide 
and the claims upon him from other sources are im- 
portant elements in the calculation — and, secondly, 
that no one should limit himself by any percentage, 



GIVING. 101 

but always allow a margin for extraordinary calls. A 
true liberality is not going to imprison itself behind 
artificial barriers. 

3. Give discriminatingly. But do not discrim- 
inate so fastidiously as to withhold giving. Wisely 
examine where you can do the most good with your 
money. Aid both in private and public charities, 
both in the care of bodies and of souls, both in home 
and foreign missions, and choose those channels in 
each where you think the great end will be best 
served. 

4. And lastly, give prayerfully, remembering that 
giving is an act of divine worship. Pray over every 
gift, that God would speed it to the desired object 
and make it fruitful. Your prayer is the spiritual 
power that will make your material gift effective, 
while earnest prayer will be both a prompter and an 
index of a liberal soul. 

Now, brethren, if we thus possess our souls in 
liberality, the Lord will make them fat. We'll avoid 
a thousand evils that otherwise would distress us. 
Our lives will be the happier, while we scatter hap- 
piness all around us, and we shall be imitators of Him 
who went about doing good. The close and niggardly 
Christian is a reproach to Him whose name he bears. 

We are now beginning a new year. Let it be a 
liberal year, as we remember all that our Lord has 
done for us in His great salvation, and as we also 
remember the privilege He gives us of being co- 
workers with Him in blessing our fellow-men, as well 
as His promise that the liberal soul shall be made fat. 



SABBATH-KEEPING. 

Exodus xx. 8 : "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it 
holy." 

I purpose this morning to offer a few practical 
thoughts on the proper observance of the Sabbath by 
the Christian. 

And my first remark is that the Sabbath is for us 
a divine institution or it is not. If it is not, then any 
kind of Sabbath observance is uncalled for. It is a 
merely human device, of no more consequence than 
are human institutions, and therefore of very ques- 
tionable advantage. If the Sabbath was meant for 
Jews and not for the Church of all ages, then the less 
we keep Sabbath the better. Keeping it would be as 
out of place as keeping the feast of tabernacles. Keep- 
ing it would only lead us back into the twilight of 
types. The Sabbath must be a divine institution, not 
only for the old Jews, but for us, if we are to keep it 
at all. We cannot bind it on the Church or the world, 
if it be but a human expediency. 

Now, if it be a divine institution for us, then we must 
go to the divine "Word for instruction as to its mean- 
ing and as to the proper mode of observing it. The 
alternative is either no Sabbath at all or the Sabbath 
as God makes it for us. We cannot strike an average 
(102) 



SABBATH-KEEPING. 103 

between these alternatives, and, taking God's Sabbath, 
shape it as we will. To divide it, and say we will use 
the first half as God's Sabbath and the last half as our 
own play-time, which is the theory largely on the Con- 
tinent of Europe, is illogical and absurd. God cer- 
tainly did not set apart a half -day. If there is any 
Sabbath, it is a whole day and not a half-day. If play 
is the appropriate exercise of the Sabbath, then it 
should be play all day, and not play only for the last 
half. If something else than play is the appropriate 
exercise of the Sabbath, then it should be this some- 
thing else than play all day, and not only for the first 
half. The day is evidently to be of the same sort all 
through. There is not a hint in Scripture of two great 
principles in the day, one for the fore-part and the 
other for the after- part. 

With these preliminary thoughts, let us now first 
answer the question, " Does the Sabbath belong to the 
Christian Church % " And then,- on finding an answer 
in the affirmative, see how God would have us spend 
the day. 

I. Does the Sabbath belong to the Christian Church f 
The common declaration of superficial opponents of 
the Sabbath is, that it was a local Jewish affair. They 
class it with the sacrifices and the annual feasts, all of 
which were done away in Christ. But these objectors 
fail to see the difference between the ordinance of the 
Sabbath and the special details of its Jewish observ- 
ance. The two things are wholly apart from one 
another. The Sabbath came to the Jews from the 
ages before, and at Sinai special forms of its observ- 



104 SABBATH-KEEPING. 

ance were given to Israel in its typical capacity. These 
forms have all expired with the ritual, but the Sab- 
bath remains as it was before the Jews existed. And 
this fundamental law of the Sabbath is imbedded in 
the Decalogue, which was wholly separated from the 
ritual or civil law by being written by the finger of 
God on tables of stone and placed by themselves in 
the ark in the Holy of Holies. The Sabbath, as such, 
is both a divine institution and a divine institution for 
all. The Jews observed it before they reached Sinai, 
and other nations also preserved its maintenance. The 
week was not a natural division of time. New moon 
and full moon could naturally mark epochs, but the 
quarters of the moon are no more natural than the 
thirds or the fifths of the moon. The week's observ- 
ance is itself a testimony to the divine origin of the 
Sabbath. The French felt this when they did away 
with the week and made a decade of days as the divi- 
sion of time, in order to be rid of the Sabbath. The 
story of Jacob and Laban shows us that three centuries 
before the law was given at Sinai, the week's division 
of time was known and used in Syria. The Baby- 
lonian records show the same a thousand years earlier. 
The fact that the Babylonians counted the weeks from 
the first of each month does not alter the testimony 
that they recognized the week, and their laws expressly 
ordered rest from labor on the Sabbath or seventh day. 
The reason for the seventh day after six being estab- 
lished is given in the Decalogue as found in the 
periods of creation, and hence the Sabbath dates not 
from Sinai, but from the beginning of man's occu- 



SABBATH-KEEPING. 105 

pancy of the earth. That it is not binding upon the 
Christian Church would be of a piece with a declara- 
tion that none of the laws of God which had special 
details of punishment given them at Sinai, are binding 
on us to-day — such as laws against murder and stealing. 

But again, objection is made that laws against mur- 
der and stealing are in consonance with our inner con- 
sciousness of right and wrong, but Sabbath-keeping 
has no inner witness at all. It is an db extra law, an 
outside statute, and finds no natural response in the 
human mind or heart. The answer to this is, that God 
has seen fit to make an outside statute for all man- 
kind, just, as before man fell, He made an outside 
statute that man should not eat of the tree of knowl- 
edge of good and evil. Why should God not give law 
to man independent of the inner consciousness, as well 
as such laws as find their echo in the conscience ? Nay, 
is not one grand external statute like this of the Sab- 
bath a constant witness for God through all genera- 
tions, a reminder to every one that we are not under 
the government of conscience merely, but under the 
government of God, above and beyond conscience ? 

I trust I have shown that the Sabbath is no Jewish 
institution, but an institution of God for the race, and 
as binding in the Christian dispensation as before. 
That there has been a change from the seventh to the 
first day of the week is true, but that change does not 
alter the fact that the seventh day after six others is 
our Sabbath. As the Church left its narrow precincts 
in Palestine, where exactly the same hours could be 
kept as Sabbath, and extended over the world where 



106 SABBATH-KEEPING. 

that is impossible, the exact hours became of no value. 
The principle of one day after six others was all that 
could be maintained, for any particular seventh day in 
New York would be the first day in Japan. There 
was also a necessity for the change in the Eastern 
countries, because the Jewish way of keeping the Sab- 
bath had become both human and burdensome, and if 
the same day were maintained in the Christian Church 
it would be hampered with all the follies that the 
Scribes and Pharisees had piled upon it. A change 
of the day was thus necessary to free the Sabbath from 
its abuses, and not only so, but also to free it from 
those Jewish methods of keeping it which were accord- 
ing to the old Mosaic law, but which belonged to the 
ritual church and were to be done away in Christ. 
Our Sunday is thus rightly called " the Christian Sab- 
bath,'* and we must go back to the Decalogue to see 
how it is to be observed. 

II. Now let us see how God would have us spend 
the holy day. " Remember the Sabbath day to keep 
it holy." We may remark in passing, that the use of 
the word " remember " shows that God was laying 
down no new law for Israel. He was only telling them 
to remember an old law, as old as mankind. The Sab- 
bath was to be kept holy, to be hallowed, to be sancti- 
fied, for such are the varied renderings of the Hebrew 
verb, "Qadesh." There is a superficial interpretation 
which says that all this hallowing or sanctifying refers 
to an outward ceremony or external rites, and that 
hence to sanctify the Sabbath meant only to set it apart 
from other days by a distinct ceremonial. And as 



SABBATH-KEEPING. 107 

proof of this interpretation those passages are quoted 
(like Exod. xxix. 21) where garments and other ma- 
terial things are sanctified or hallowed. Now it is not 
denied that the word is often used of an outward rite, 
but this is always as significant of an inward holiness. 
The clean garments of the priesthood, anointed and 
sprinkled, were emblematic of a pure manhood, conse- 
crated to God. The word, therefore, is never to be 
confined to the outward rite, but always looks to some- 
thing beyond. The priest, for example, was conse- 
crated, hallowed, sanctified, made holy by a certain 
ceremonial (Exod. xxviii. 41), but that typical holiness 
only shadowed a real spiritual holiness which the priest 
ought to possess. It is precisely so with the Sabbath. 
We are to keep it holy. Well, that may imply a num- 
ber of external duties, which serve externally to sepa- 
rate the day from other days, but the meaning of the 
word is not exhausted there. It means that beneath 
all external things there shall be a genuine spiritual 
use of the day as holy time. We cannot get rid of the 
spiritual meaning of that word, " keep holy." To do 
so would be to make all religion a formalism. We 
have, therefore, God's command regarding the Sab- 
bath — a command demanding the use of the whole 
day as holy time, time to be used in holy ways, to the 
special worship of God and to our own growth in holi- 
ness. There is no possible escape from this plain 
meaning of the command. 

Now, then, if the Sabbath is God's day, appointed 
by Him to foster our holiness, to contribute to our 
sanctification, we see at once that the mere abstinence 



108 SABBATH-KEEPING. 

from our ordinary avocations does not meet the re- 
quirement. The rest from work, by the words of the 
command, is to be a holy rest, not a secular rest. To 
stop the meaning of the Sabbath with the mere idea 
of cessation from labor is both against the letter and 
spirit of all God's commands, which seek action in the 
heart. 

The Sabbath day is, therefore, to be kept holy in the 
full sense of that word. What, then, is our proper ob- 
servance of the day ? First, certainly, to meet in holy 
convocation to worship God. This was Israel's plan ; 
it was also the plan of the Christian Church from the 
beginning. The solidarity of the Church was to be 
seen on that day, when all Christians, as brethren in 
Christ, should assemble before God. A Sabbath with- 
out attendance upon the public worship of God, where 
it is possible, is an abused Sabbath. It lacks the church 
element which every Christian should sustain. The 
notion that we can just as well worship God at home 
is but an excuse for spiritual torpor. No earnest 
Christian ever entertained such a notion. 

The special study of Goal's Word is another neces- 
sary mark of a true Sabbath. That Word is our one 
light in this dark world of sin. We should be ever 
walking in that light. And yet how lamentably igno- 
rant of the Scriptures many Christians are ! How few 
bend over the Word as the God-given fountain of re- 
freshing to the soul! And yet that should be the 
position of every one of us. We need all the help we 
can get in this study, and the teachings of the pulpit, 
if faithful, are among the best helps to this end. But 



SABBATH-KEEPING. 109 

these teachings will be of small value unless we follow 
them up in our retirement with careful searching of 
the Scripture as did the Bereans, who received the 
divine commendation for so doing. The Sabbath, as 
a day of leisure from our ordinary work, is the day 
specially adapted for this careful, private Scripture 
study. Its hours should be full of this spiritual re- 
search, with prayer for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. 

And this brings up another element of the true 
Sabbath. It should be eminently a day of prayer and 
meditation. We should, with hearts of gratitude, re- 
hearse to ourselves the Lord's gracious dealings, and 
strengthen our souls by the retrospect, in which exer- 
cise prayer and praise will always have a large part. 
Prayer need not always have a set form, either in 
words or attitude. We may lift up our souls to God 
in prayer and praise as we sit, as we read, as we walk, 
and so our lives may be steeped in prayer. 

Now, it is very evident that a Christian who spends 
the Sabbath in this way that God designed it to be 
spent, would no more think of sitting down to read a 
Sunday newspaper than he would think of going to 
his place of business and conducting it as on the other 
days. The Christian who takes a Sunday newspaper 
is very far from knowing what the Sabbath is, and 
very far from prizing his religious opportunities. If 
indeed a Christian, his love to the Master is very 
weak, for the Master has said : " If ye love me, keep 
my commandments." 

A Christian who strolls about on the Sabbath, ap- 
parently not knowing what to do with himself, is alto- 



110 SABBATH-KEEPING. 

gether out of harmony with divine things and God's 
ways, and is very like the godless world that counts 
the Sabbath a weary burden and would like to be free 
from it. The Christian who would be holy, as God is 
holy, will love the Sabbath as one of the most blessed 
means of grace, and will find its hours all too short 
for his happy exercises of spiritual application. He 
will cherish it as a precious privilege and thank God 
for the holy day which does so much for his soul. 
My heart is pained when I see Christians, so-called, 
whiling away the Sunday with walks and visits and 
the reading of secular literature, and so wholly divert- 
ing the blessed day from its divine purpose. God does 
not want us to keep the Sabbath as slaves, whipped to 
a certain course of conduct, but He wants us to love 
the Sabbath and to use it in love, and because we love 
Him. Ah ! is not the trouble that we do not wish to 
become holy ? We love folly so much that we would 
postpone the growth in holiness to the next world. 
Oh, my dear hearers, if any of you are in that case, be 
sure that you are not deceiving yourselves in thinking 
that you are Christians. Be sure that you are not 
wearing a name that does not belong to you. If you 
are not seeking holiness here, how can you expect to 
dwell in God's holy heaven hereafter ? Christ's saved 
ones are saints, that is, "holy ones." If holiness finds 
no desire in your heart, how can you be Christ's ? If 
you are Christ's and love and seek holiness, you will 
remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. 



THE CHKISTIAN'S ATTITUDE IK A 
WICKED CITY. 

Acts xvii. 16: "Now while Paul waited fob them at 
Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the 
city wholly given to idolatry. therefore disputed he 
in the synagogue with the jews and with the devout 
persons, and in the market daily with them that met 

HIM." 

The agora of Athens was the centre of the world's 
refinement, science, and philosophy. When the Tar- 
sus Jew entered that illustrious square six centuries 
had filled it with fame. On the east arose the cliff 
of the Acropolis, crowned by the Propylsea and 
Parthenon, the master works of Phidias. On the south 
was the high hill of the Museum, on which stood the 
proud monument of the royal Syrian, who coveted the 
honor of becoming an Athenian citizen. On the west 
was the lower rock of the Puyx, from whose bema 
Solon, Aristides, Themistocles, Pericles, and Demos- 
thenes had addressed the Attic assemblies ; and on the 
north, steps cut in the stone led to the summit of the 
Areopagus, where the highest council of the State 
preserved their sacred dignity. Nearer than these 
rocky heights were the three Stoae or porches (from 
one of which a celebrated school of philosophy had 
derived its name), the statues of the patriots Harmo- 

(111) 



112 THE CHRISTIAN IN A WICKED CITY. 

ding and Aristogeiton, and of many a mythic hero, 
the Senate-house and rows of tasteful and elaborate 
temples, and the little hill Colonus Agoraeus, where 
Meton the astronomer had lived, and where he had 
erected his " heliotrope " to measure the length of the 
solar year. Every spot in that precinct was con- 
nected with some event in the achievements of art 
and letters, or with the deeds of patriotic heroism and 
statesmanship, and the names which appertained to 
that little spot of ground, and its history had become 
the cherished synonym of glory to the whole civilized 
world. 

Into this centre of refined memories walked a 
Jew of middle years, who, by his education, could 
well appreciate the charms of the spot. Of warm 
sympathies, of vigorous intellect, of cultivated taste, 
his fervent spirit was well adapted to view the scene 
with rapture. The past generations would stand be- 
fore him in their classic outline. His imagination 
would greet the poets of the theatre, the philosophers 
of the porch, the orators of the Puyx, and the coun- 
cillors of the Areopagus. He would feel the potency 
of the influences that radiated from this agora upon 
the whole world, although political power had long 
fled from Greece, and the fourth imperial Caesar sat 
on the Latin throne. Had he come to bathe his 
spirit in these associations and to gather from these 
Attic flowers the fragrant honey of aesthetic thought ? 
Had he sought Athens, like Longinus, to identify 
himself with its academic atmosphere, or, like At- 
ticus, to find the elegant refinements that suit the cul- 



THE CHRISTIAN IN A WICKED CITY. 113 

tured mind ? How crazed you would have been 
counted, my hearer, if you had told one of those 
Athenian sages, as he lounged in the Stoa Poikile, 
that yon small, dark-haired Jew had come to teach 
Athens ! that he brought with him a knowledge and 
wisdom as far above Plato as heaven is above the 
earth ! And what an Arabian romance it would have 
been to the ears of that white-robed councillor, if you 
had told him that the Oriental who was then crossing 
the square would tarn the religion and philosophy of 
Athens upside down, that he the councillor would in 
a few days join the Jew in his wonderful work — nay 
more, that in three centuries from that day, when the 
shrines of Minerva, Jupiter, and Mars should lie in 
ruins, a stately temple should stand on that very hill 
of Mars and commemorate this fact by bearing the 
councillor's own name, as the church of Dionysius the 
Areopagite. 

In view of these things (now the great facts of 
history), what a memorable day was that when 
Paul first stood under the shadow of the Acropolis ! 
It was nothing less than the Divine Word meeting 
Human Wisdom ; the power of the Truth brought 
into death-grapple with the fascinations of specula- 
tion, aided by the charms of literature and art. This 
Word, this Truth was borne in an earthen vessel — a 
single and insignificant man. Luke had been left at 
Philippi, Timothy at Thessalonica, Silas at Berea, 
and Paul had entered Athens alone. But all that 
Solon, Pisistratus, Themistocles, Pericles, and Alex- 
ander had done in the Grecian world was nothing to 



114 THE CHRISTIAN IN A WICKED CITY. 

what should ensue from the overflowings of the large 
heart of this single, unnoticed Paul. Their work was 
done in the outer circles of life, in the taste, the fancy, 
or the material condition, — but his work was to be 
wrought in the very citadel of being, in the conscience 
and affections. Their work was to last a lifetime, his 
an eternity. Their work was to exalt the Greek above 
all others, his was to destroy all difference between 
Jew and Greek. Their work was to deify the hu- 
man, his to fill the human with the divine. And 
now that eighteen centuries have rolled away, we read 
of Greece's heroes as we look upon the distant stars, 
but Paul's great work is daily felt the more in every 
pulsation of the life of Christendom. 

We have introduced this picture of Paul at Athens 
for the special purpose of studying the true posture of 
a Christian soul in the midst of a great and wicked 
city, that we may apply the lesson to ourselves as 
God's responsible agents and representatives in this 
metropolis of wealth, enterprise, learning, and in- 
fluence. And may the God who sustained Paul 
vouchsafe unto us the upholding of his free spirit 
that we may boldly do our duty as the unflinching 
hero of Tarsus did his ! 

There are two aspects in which the apostle appears 
at Athens. The former is revealed in the sixteenth 
verse, " Now, while Paul waited for them at Athens, 
his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city 
wholly given to idolatry." "His spirit was stirred 
within himP There was an agitation in that ca- 
pacious soul like the upheavings of the ocean's waves 



THE CHRISTIAN IN A WICKED CITY. H5 

in the tempest. It is from the Greek word used here 
we have our English " paroxysm." It denotes an in- 
tense emotion, absorbing the attention and faculties, 
but does not determine the cause or object. Any pas- 
sion in a good or bad service might use this word for 
the expression of its intensity. We are therefore to 
look to the context to discover the character of this 
tumultuous excitement of the apostle's spirit. Who 
was this Paul? What had been his antecedents? 
Into what position had his heart been brought ? A 
right answer to these questions will be a key to our 
knowledge of the nature of his agitation, as he passed 
among the triumphs of Athenian art. 

Saul of Tarsus had been born in the strictness of 
Judaism and trained in the rabbinical schools. His 
zealous and untiring nature had made him a leader in 
his very youth, and against the nascent Christianity, 
which he saw rising out of Judaism like a pestilent 
heresy, he had flung the weight of his influence and 
impetuosity, and had proudly stood forward as the re- 
sponsible party, when, under his supervision, the fierce 
mob of Jerusalem stoned the angelic Stephen into 
heaven. Gaining new impulse from this tragic scene, 
he had cut a broad swath of suffering through the 
Christian ranks in Jerusalem, and had started thence 
with ferocious zeal to destroy the name of Christ in 
the old city of Damascus, when, near the gates of 
that metropolis, in which the Christians had awaited 
in trembling the onset of this young persecutor, a 
light from heaven cast the lion to the ground and 
he arose a lamb. Three years of retirement in the 



116 THE CHRISTIAN IN A WICKED CITS. 

wilderness of Arabia prepared the converted Ben- 
jamite for his new career. His impetuous disposition, 
enlightened and sanctified, started forth on a life- 
course of love. He bore no harsh and cruel edict of 
legal conformity, but the proclamation of God's 
pardon through the blood of Jesus, and his enlarged 
heart sought the whole world for its ministrations of 
love. More than a score of years had elapsed since 
Christ's foe had become His champion, and during 
these years the varied experiences of trial had refined 
his soul. Shipwreck, robbery, scourging, slander, 
contumely, bodily weakness, and absorbing cares had 
been parts of his discipline, under which the truth as 
it is in Jesus had been rooted into his whole being, 
even as storms more firmly root the oak or sycamore ; 
and now, at fifty years of age, he was already a vet- 
eran in the service of his Divine Master, ever glorying 
in Him and ever remembering himself as a miracle of 
grace. The world to him was Satan's usurped domain 
that was to be won to Jesus, its rightful monarch, and 
himself was a first-fruit and specimen of that con- 
quest. 

What to such a soul were the highest guesses 
of the Academy, the Lyceum, or the Porch, when 
the Holy Spirit had, with the illumination of his 
understanding, put him beyond either the need or 
the desire of speculation? What to him were the 
mementoes of Marathon and Salami s, when the con- 
tests of Gethsemane and Calvary demanded their tro- 
phies at Athens as at Jerusalem ? What to him were 
the works of Phidias and Praxiteles, of Zeuxis and 



THE CHRISTIAN IN A WICKED CITY. 117 

Apelles, when God had revealed to him the beauties 
of holiness wrought by the plastic power of the Gos- 
pel? The stirring of Paul's apostolic soul was not 
that of awe before the imposing monuments of Attic 
glory, or of admiration before the works of Attic gen- 
ius, or of romantic sadness in memory of Attic history. 
The occasion of his inward commotion is expressly 
stated in the sacred narrative. " His spirit was stirred 
in him when he saw the city wholly given to idola- 
try P On every corner he beheld the shrine of a new 
divinity. In front of the private dwellings as well as 
in the public streets and squares the marble assumed 
the graceful forms of Aphrodite or Athene, of Apollo 
or Meleager. There were more gods in Athens than 
there were people. The temples were thronged with 
worshippers and the avenues were traversed continu- 
ally by the festal and sacred processions. Art and 
luxury were the baits of the sensuous and sensual re- 
ligion. God seems to have permitted Greece to have 
reached the acme of literary and artistic excellence, to 
show the world how utterly impotent are intellectual 
culture, aesthetic attainment, and human civilization to 
repress sin and vice, and to give love and purity to the 
soul of man. In this Athenian centre of the highest aes- 
thetic civilization the world ever saw or has ever seen, 
the very sanctities of religion were thrown over the 
most debasing forms of vice, and divine arguments 
were the supporting pillars of selfishness and lust. 

It was on this — the fact and features of Attic idolatry 
— on which the apostle's gaze was riveted. It was this 
gilded depravity which stirred his spirit. This was 



118 THE CHRISTIAN IN A WICKED CITY. 

the occasion and the love of Christ was the cause. 
He felt that Satan had erected one of his strongholds 
here — a masterpiece of cleverness — and that just here 
the power of the truth must be disclosed and human 
faith project the divine power against the walls and 
buttresses of the Satanic fortress. Keenly alive him- 
self to the influences of the beautiful and the roman- 
tic, he knew what a fatal fascination they must prove 
when made the allies and promoters of sin, and so, in 
his mighty soul, he rose above the beautiful, in which 
Athens abounded, to the good and the true, of which 
she knew nothing. He did not say within himself (as 
he might easily have done, so far as we regard his in- 
tellectual status), " This is Athens — the cynosure of 
the human race, the home of the Muses, the fountain 
of wisdom — here I may open my soul and learn the 
mysteries of art ; here I may drink my fill at the re- 
freshing springs of poesy and philosophy, finding 
sweet contemplation in the groves of Academus or 
by the twin-hills of Colonus, listening to the plaintive 
air of the nightingale, and tasting the honey of the 
Attic bee." How different was the determination of 
the apostolic hero! He trod those pavements with 
the consciousness of power. He came to give, not to 
receive. Greek genius was only a target for the Gos- 
pel arrow. Christ had made him a giant by His grace, 
and he would honor Christ by acting the giant and 
stalking into the midst of Athens with a bolder tread 
and a mightier force than Theseus used, when he had 
left Procrustes dead upon the banks of the Cephissus. 
His soul was fired with holy indignation at the sin of 



THE CHRISTIAN IN A WICKED CITY. 119 

earth's noblest city, and with holy ambition to strike 
at and strike down that sin with the flashing sword of 
the Spirit. 

This, then, is the first aspect in which Paul appears 
at Athens. The second is revealed in the seventeenth 
verse, " Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with 
the Jews and with the devout persons (i. e., prose- 
lytes), and in the market daily with them that met 
with him." Here we are removed from the interior 
to the exterior view. The intense commotion is not 
a mere subjective phenomenon. The movement of 
these springs affect the outer life. The discussions in 
the synagogue and market were the outbursts of the 
inward excitement. Our word " dispute " conveys 
too much the idea of quarrelling to be fully adapted 
to this place. The word refers to discussion, reason- 
ing, earnest argument. This discussion had two fields 
of operation — the synagogue and the market. In the 
synagogue Paul met the Jewish residents and prose- 
lytes, and naturally and properly first declared the 
Messiah to these. Here he found the believers in the 
Old Testament Scriptures, and to them he would ar- 
gue from prophecy regarding the glorious kingdom 
which was to fill the whole earth. He would show 
them how Moses and David and Isaiah all sent the rays 
of their prophetic light converging on the cross of Cal- 
vary, — how types were all absorbed and annulled in the 
mighty antitype, — how the sceptre had departed from 
Judah because Shiloh had come, — how the witness of 
the Holy Ghost in thirty years of miracles had been 
sent from heaven to announce the Messiah and His 



120 THE CHRISTIAN IN A WICKED CITY. 

cause, — and how already many hundred thousands had 
felt the influence of the wonderful truth, and had 
been transformed in heart and life to acknowledge 
the divine power and grace. 

In the market or market-place (the agora, or place 
of public concourse) the zealous truth-bearer found 
another class to deal with, the genuine Athenians, 
curious in questions and quick-witted in repartee, 
polytheists in profession and atheists in practice, who, 
in vain attempts to define truth, utterly lost sight 
of truth, and, in praising virtue, degraded virtue; 
skeptical in all that was good, and conservative in 
vice ; boasting of their free thought while enslaved 
to their conceit, and ignoring all revelation beyond 
the enigmas of the oracles and the extravagances 
of the poets. Paul was ready for these. He was 
going to yield the way to none of them. The Gospel 
that was good for Jew was good for Greek. Men 
in Athens did not differ from men in Jerusalem, so 
far as sin and salvation went. Nay, the vastness of 
the abomination which Satan had set up on this hill 
of Hellenic pride only invited the heartiest blows of 
the Christian Hercules. These Phidian gods and god- 
desses must be dragged in the dust behind the chariot 
of the Kedeemer. These fanes of enshrined sin must 
be purified by the truth of Jesus. These glittering 
speculative systems must be sent together down to a 
philosophical hades. And the simplicity of the Gos- 
pel must signalize its triumph over the complications 
of dialectics and mythology. Paul's faith anticipated 
all this. He told the Greek converts of Corinth not 



THE CHRISTIAN IN A WICKED CITY. 121 

long after that the kingdom of God was " not in word, 
but in power "; that the foolish things of the world 
should confound the wise, and the weak things of the 
world should confound the things which are mighty, 
and base things of the world, and things which are de- 
spised, and things which are not, God had chosen to 
bring to naught things that are. It was the strength 
of this faith which gave him a lion's boldness before 
the lounging throng of disciplined minds in the agora 
of Athens. This Athens must be, shall be Christ's. 
This was his prevailing, overwhelming thought. God's 
honor demands it, Christ's love demands it, the 
gratitude of the saved Saul of Tarsus demands it, the 
eternal welfare of Greek souls demands it. His soul 
half in heaven all the while, rose above earthly con- 
siderations and calculations, and right in the face of 
Grecian poetry, and architecture, and statuary, and 
painting, and music, and science, and luxury (oh ! what 
a position for such a determination !), he determined 
to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 
Where in man's history is a scene of moral grandeur 
like this ! It is this heroism in the sphere of thought, 
motive and choice, amid contending desires which 
dwarfs the mere heroism of the battle-field to insignifi- 
cance. 

It was with this spirit, sublime and divine, that the 
accomplished pupil of Gamaliel daily joined the phi- 
losophers and cultivated men of Athens and skilfully 
pushed the Gospel upon their attention and their con- 
sciences. More than that, as we are told that he con- 
versed with all who happened to be in his way, our 



122 THE CHRISTIAN IN A WICKED CITY. 

picture is not complete until we see him, in earnest 
expostulation, entreaty, and instruction, talking with 
the humbler representatives of Athenian life, the sol- 
dier off duty, the mechanic passing to his place of 
work, the rustic bringing in his fresh vegetables to 
the market, and the slave either on his master's errand 
or using his holiday in the enjoyment of the liveliness 
of the agora. There was no weariness in the apostolic 
work, as there was no dimness in the glorious outlines 
of the future. It was that view, and not present suc- 
cess, which sustained and invigorated him. He knew 
his blows on sin were effective without a Dionysius 
and a Damaris to prove it. The promise of God 
was a stronger motive than the actual conversion of 
the whole Areopagus. In that promise he revelled. 
It was his meat and drink — his harp and song — his 
breath and life. " I can do all things through Christ, 
which strengtheneth me," was his exulting shout of 
conscious power. And so we read he did this work 
" daily" It was no drudgery to such a soul. It was 
the use of readiest means to attain a darling end. The 
Spirit of God had given him a spiritual eyesight, which, 
as the microscope reveals the exquisite tracery of the 
insect's wing, studded this dull work with diamond 
beauties and made its yield far richer to the soul than 
all the glories of Athenian art and luxury. Ah ! never 
had Athens witnessed such a sight as this. It had 
seen Miltiades enter amid the plaudits of a grateful 
people, when Datis and Artaphernes and the old ty- 
rant Hippias had been thrust off from Greece by the 
emphatic valor of Marathon. It had seen the Persian 



THE CHRISTIAN IN A WICKED CITY. 123 

monarch and his million followers with their purple 
and gold cover the Attic soil with Asiatic magnifi- 
cence. It had seen Lysander destroying the walls and 
fortresses of its pride to the sound of Dorian flutes. 
It had seen Demosthenes hold the people spellbound 
by his patriotic eloquence, and Plato teach his admir- 
ing disciples the witchery of his half-poetic mathesis, 
but, with such scenes a thousand times repeated, the 
Parthenon had never looked down on so eventful a 
day in Athens as that in which the Jew of Tarsus 
stood beneath the Areopagus. The arms of patriots 
or of Persian foes, Spartan jealousy, the graces of ora- 
tory, the instructions of philosophy, all combined, 
compared with the Jesus-truth which escaped Paul's 
mouth, were as the childhood's play to the earthquake. 
And this we say, if we only regard earthly results, the 
upheavings which were to shake and shatter the very 
basis of society and bring the old heathenish order to 
chaos. But if we go further and regard the spiritual 
truth which Paul carried and imparted — if we analyze 
the spark of heaven which this true Prometheus bore, 
the comparison becomes still more wide, and Athens 
lays her thousand glories at the feet of Paul. 

With this view of Paul at Athens, let us address 
ourselves to gather our own appropriate lesson. He 
stands before us as the model of a Christian in a city 
full of sin. We have divided the view into two parts ; 
we shall divide the application in the same way. 

The first regards our state of mind as dwellers in a 
city abounding in vice. It becomes us to have our 
spirits stirred within us. We are not only saved 



124 THE CHRISTIAN IN A WICKED CITY. 

souls in the midst of the lost, but enlightened souls in 
the midst of those who are deliberately engaged in 
darkening their understandings every day. There 
are some Christians so stolid or so selfish that this 
fact does not ripple the surface of their feelings. 
They are like the nine lepers, who, when healed of 
their leprosy, sank into quiescence. They could be 
excited enough when they cried, " Jesus, Master, have 
mercy on us" but when the mercy had come, there 
was no excitement for others — no practical returning 
to give glory to God. It is not that these Christians 
are opposed to excitement — they have enough and to 
spare in business and pleasure, but it is religious ex- 
citement they shun. They dislike the words "re- 
vival" and "awakening," little thinking that their 
readiness to apply the word " cant " is but a token of 
their own remissness and a desire to excuse their self- 
ish lives. They have made themselves unsympathiz- 
ing, and in the work which Jesus commissions every 
disciple to do, they are, therefore, of no use what- 
ever. There is nothing elastic or responsive in their 
religious natures. What they get they keep — it is 
never reflected from them, and it never grows up and 
out from them so as to benefit others. They are re- 
ligious sponges, made no better by what they absorb 
and contributing nothing to those around. They need 
God's mercy to squeeze them by severe calamity that 
they may learn to be communicative and fraternal. It 
becomes a Christian to anticipate such providential 
processes. His views should be so lofty and his love 
to Christ so ardent that his influences for the Saviour 



THE CHRISTIAN IN A WICKED CITY. 125 

would flow forth, in an overflowing stream continu- 
ally. His whole soul should be shaken — every fac- 
ulty brought into vigorous use and every emotion in 
strong accord — with the emergency of the scene be- 
fore him. 

And what should be the character of this grand 
excitement ? We learn from Paul. It should be : 
(1). An excitement of indignation. Why are these 
idols on every street and in every house ? Why is 
my God, the living and true God, thus insulted by 
His creatures ? Why, when His glory should fill the 
thoughts and desires of all, are the hearts of men affi- 
anced to the tinsel that will tarnish in a day ? Men 
are watching, pushing, leaping, springing, running, 
dodging, forcing their energies, driving their brains, 
draining their nerves, blanching their skin and hair, 
and digging their graves in order to win an ephem- 
eral name for wealth and distinction, with God aban- 
doned, His word neglected, His calls despised, and 
His witness, conscience, trampled into silence. How 
can I see all this and my heart not burn with jealousy 
for the Lord God of my salvation ? On every side is 
sin in Protean colors — here is refined vice, pollution 
gilded with a master skill for the use of the educated, 
the delicate, and the fashionable, mixed with music 
and art and tinctured with religion so as to appear 
highly respectable ; and there is vulgar vice, open and 
broad in the streets and groggeries and brothels — and 
all this, too, not in hell, but upon earth, where the 
holy Jesus is stretching out His hands to save sinners. 
Can I see this and keep calm ? 



126 THE CHRISTIAN IN A WICKED CITY. 

(2). It should be an excitement of compassion. Je- 
sus came not to condemn. Let us beware, lest in our 
indignation we lose His example and curse where we 
ought to bless. My poor soul would have been as 
far gone, as low laid, as God-forsaken as any of these 
about me but for grace, free grace. I see my own 
history in every child of iniquity. And shall I not 
pity them ? Christ's pity for them brought Him to 
the very ultimate of suffering for them. Is not that 
an argument for pity \ Yes, I will weep for them 
and remember, too, that, when I weep for them, I am 
confessing my own birthright of sin. 

(3). It should be an excitement of desire. If Paul 
had only hsid pity for Athens, Dionysius would never 
have given up his chair on Areopagus for a seat in 
heaven. His pity enkindled his desires. He longed 
to see the dead live. He yearned to tear away the 
Nessus robe of sin that was wrapping this gifted city 
in its fiery embrace. He would glorify God and re- 
joice his own heart in showing God's love to these 
godless Athenians and in opening the doors of their 
prison, where Satan held them as unconscious captives 
for his grand day of slaughter. 

(4). It was an excitement of hope. Christianity nei- 
ther demands nor prompts anything desperate. The 
work proposed is not a chimera. It is plain and feas- 
ible. It is not man's work, or it would be both des- 
perate and foolish ; but it is God's work through man. 
There is the guarantee of its success. It was this divine 
hope or expectation which gave Paul's desires their 
full plumage and led them forth from their nest in 



THE CHRISTIAN IN A WICKED CITY. 127 

his bosom. It was this which nerved him into hero- 
ism and sent his name down to ns as the synonym of 
a glorious Christian and of Christian glory. When 
we look upon the masses of this city lying in wicked- 
ness, let the excitement of our souls be confirmed by 
this stout hope which gets its stoutness from the prom- 
ises of God in Christ. It will open our mouths and 
quicken our feet and give the work of the Gospel a 
relish, as if we were eating the figs and pomegranates 
of Paradise. 

The second part of the application of the text re- 
fers to our outward conduct After what has been con- 
sidered regarding the Christian' s proper state of mmd 
in the midst of a city like ours, it is very easy to define 
the outward conduct. Paul's religion was no senti- 
mentalism. It did not go and sigh sesthetically on the 
summit of Hymettus or write sweet poetry in the gar- 
dens of the Muses. It burst out into active effort to 
save men from sin and hell. He did not care whether 
it was Greece or Scythia, — souls were dying and must 
be rescued. Something higher than art and deeper 
than philosophy must be taught in Athens. An ora- 
cle more potent than Delphi must be opened there, 
and a song sweeter than that of Simonides or Sopho- 
cles must be sung along the banks of the Ilissus, and 
Paul has courage enough and faith enough to inaugu- 
rate the revolution. His whispers to those poor beg- 
gars — his answers to those curious news-seekers — his 
discussions with those dignified sages — his respectful 
representations to those venerable councillors are the 
first notes of that magic spell that is to overthrow the 



128 THE CHRISTIAN IN A WICKED CITY. 

temples and the idols of Hellas and erect the cross as 
the symbol of the nation's faith. It is the heart 
stirred by the sight of surrounding sin that sets the 
life in healthy action for the Lord's great cause. 
Alas for work where it has not this internal spring ! 
What a heavy chain the poor conscience-Christian drags, 
when he is whipped into work, and what poor work 
he does ! The impulse must come from within — all 
that indignation, compassion, desire, and hope must 
be there of which we have spoken, and then the 
life bounds to its Christ- work as the hawk speeds to 
its quarry. The inward excitement feeds the life and 
guarantees the progress. 

We have used the words " impulse " and " excite- 
ment." Let none confound them with " fanaticism." 
Fanaticism is a human impulse — we speak of a divine 
impulse. That Divine Spirit who brought order out 
of chaos has sanctified the soul by His truth and He 
gives wisdom with energy to the renewed man. We 
are to carry the Gospel, and, because it is the Gospel, 
the most precious treasure we can bear, we are to carry 
it with prudence as well as zeal. We are not to rush 
in the face of every prejudice and defy the rules of 
courtesy. We are to study occasion and opportunity, 
character and position. Paul had one style for the 
jailer at Philippi and another for the dignitaries of 
Athens, — he had compliment as well as rebuke, — he 
was affable as well as faithful, — he was all things to 
all men that by all means he might save some. 

The activity that is thus generated and thus ordered 
will be continuous and not spasmodic. It takes hold 



THE CHRISTIAN IN A WICKED CITY. 129 

of work with the warm grasp of love, not the feverish 
clutch of passion. It does not grow weary of work for 
the Master any more than one grows weary of his daily 
food. It continues daily, as Paul did, because it is a 
regular and principal, not a collateral, occupation. The 
Pauline spirit never says, " I'll work hard this week 
for my own outward prosperity, devoting my chief 
energies and my best time to this end, and then, if 
any little hiatus occurs — any temporary lull in the 
whirl of trade — I'll take a turn or two for Christ." 
It scorns such a mockery of piety as that in the name 
of the Master, and carries as its watchword, " Seek 
first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and 
all these things shall be added unto you." So, it can- 
not be satisfied with a proxy interest in Jesus' work. 
It cannot say to another, " You do the work and I'll 
furnish the money." It will not try to make a bun- 
dle of greenbacks take the place of the personal Chris- 
tian arguing, urging, teaching, sympathizing, and 
helping. You might as well imagine Paul establish- 
ing a grand tent manufactory at Tarsus and represent- 
ing himself at Athens by a fair subscription. Chris- 
tian work for souls is the product of Christian excite- 
ment for souls, and hence Christian work for souls re- 
quires not only the purse but the person. 

Brethren and friends, we have seen what Christian- 
ity in New York ought to be from a glance at Paul 
in Athens. How can we stand the comparison ? Are 
we not rebuked ? Is there any less need for us to be 
devoted to the Master's cause than Paul ? Has this 
wonderful nineteenth century, of which we've heard 



130 THE CHRISTIAN IN A WICKED CITY. 

so much, improved on Pauline Christianity and found 
out a way by which Christ can be served without 
hurting the feelings of Mammon ? Ah ! dear breth- 
ren in the Lord Jesus, don't we wish to prepare the 
eternal kingdom in which we are to dwell ? Ought 
not the love of Christ, the love of souls, and a sancti- 
fied love of self, all co-operate to render us faithful to 
our holy charge ? What grander work is revealed to 
angelic eyes than this of saving souls ? What higher 
triumph can the universe exhibit than the triumph of 
Him who has rescued an immortal saint from the deep 
damnation of eternal sin ? When our earth-sight, with 
all its refractions and bedimmings, is exchanged for 
heaven's clear and true vision, then we shall be daz- 
zled with the glory of this work, when the rest of 
earth's mementoes are a heap of ashes. Oh ! then, in 
the name of God the Saviour, in the view of eternal 
light, by the worth of Christ's own work, and by the 
value of your own salvation, I beseech you, as you 
look around upon this city so full of idols, let your 
every pulse beat with pity, purpose, and power for 
the poor idolaters. 



DESIEE FOE DEATH. 

Philippians i. 23: "Having a desiee to depart and to 
be with Christ, which is far better." 

Is there one before me of whose personal experi- 
ence this is a correct statement ? Is there one here 
ready to leave this world at once, with affairs of home 
and business just as they are, with so much unfinished, 
so much in plan, and so many hopes budding ? Nay, 
more than that, is there one here who, more than 
ready, is desirous of quitting this earth with all that 
is so dear upon it for the heavenly home ? The ques- 
tion searches very deeply. Who can use these apos- 
tolic words ? And yet just as far as we are removed 
from this aspiration, so far we are removed from com- 
pleteness in Christ. The matter is one not only of 
apostolic example, but of logical consistency. If we are 
so faint-hearted and earthly as to relinquish all efforts 
toward an apostolic model, we are still held bound by 
the logical laws of our new life in Jesus. We found 
salvation in Christ. With salvation we found holiness. 
We also found these by means of a purchase, where 
the blood of Jesus was the price, and whereby we be- 
came the property of our Deliverer. It was not the 
purchase of a slave, but a purchase into freedom, and 
the ownership was not of muscles and sinews, but of 

(131) 



132 DESIRE FOR DEA.TH. 

the heart's affections. He gave us a new life ; He be- 
gan in us a new creation ; that life grows out of Him 
as its source ; that creation revolves around Him as its 
regulator. All that is in us or by us or with us of 
good is the efficient action of Jesus, who is ever with 
His own people. Christ is the spring of all godliness, 
for our salvation is the existence of Christ in us. That 
is our hope of glory. That is why God, looking on 
the face of His Anointed, is God regarding us with 
love. Christ is formed in us, and we are identified 
with Him. Is this too lofty a description of the 
Christian ? It is the Bible's description. It is well for 
us to read it over again and again, for there is a tend- 
ency, born of pride and worldliness, to bring down 
our religious life to a legal standard, and in certain 
actions or omissions to hide from ourselves the life 
itself which should be the only prompter of action or 
omission. This, then, being the very essence of the 
Christian's true life, Christ in him, that life will be 
most complete when Christ is most realized and en- 
joyed. This is the logical consistency which I said 
lies in the text, as well as does the apostolic example, 
for our adoption as the saved of the Lord. 

In endeavoring to come near to the high platform 
of Paul to-day, let us consider : 

1. Why people dread death ; and 

2. Why Christians ought to desire it. 

1. Why do people dread death f The mass of men 
mark on their charts a terra incognita beyond the 
grave, and they wish to pay no attention to that 
region. It is a vague affair in their minds with much 



DESIRE FOR DEATH. 133 

in it that is repulsive, and they would keep their 
thoughts from it so far as possible. An uncertainty 
is always unpleasant to dwell upon, and if you put 
a large element of fearful possibilities into the uncer- 
tainty, you make it still more odious. It is this un- 
certain future with its dim forebodings which makes 
the mass of men dread death. The uncertainty is the 
result of the condition of ignorance in which men 
keep themselves in spite of God's light offered them, 
and the forebodings are the result of sin recognized 
by the conscience and suggesting, by the uniform con- 
stitution of the soul, the consequent punishment. The 
only relief the heart can have is in absorbing itself in 
the present earthly life and so excluding the painful 
subject from the thoughts. The great majority of 
men for the great majority of their time succeed by 
this device, and even gain such a worldly impetus as 
to be able to carry themselves over those periods of 
special divine call, when the death of friends and kin- 
dred would arrest them, with scarce a momentary 
shudder. But if you can bring death before them, it 
is a monster. They have settled it to be such, and as 
such they have nearly shut it out of their thoughts. 
No age or nation can produce an exception to this 
position of hostility between man and death. The 
Bible only states a fact when it calls death man's 
enemy. " Bitter as death," " sad as death," " fearful 
as death," are the common words of the race that 
show the universal opinion. The quietness and free- 
dom from horror with which men do actually die in 
no wise militates against this position. It is seldom 



134 DESIRE FOR DEATH. 

that any one finds terrors in the very embrace of 
death. The soul to whom death is a frightful idea 
is not affrighted by death itself. The reason of this 
strange phenomenon is chiefly that the powers of 
the body are so weakened that the mind is prevented, 
by the body's decay, from the ordinary activity of 
thought. And, besides, we are so generally deceived 
by disease, that the dying man fails to realize the fact 
that he is in death's embrace. He persistently looks 
to the time side and not the eternity side of his crisis. 
In the case of a criminal brought to the gallows where 
disease does not deceive and where hope of longer life 
is entirely cut off, there death assumes its dreadful as- 
pect to the soul, and we find the blanched cheek and 
trembling limbs or else the knit brow and set teeth of 
fierce determination, either of which opposite appear- 
ances proves that death is seen as a dread enemy and 
cannot be met open-eyed with calmness. No, the 
quiet death-bed is no argument against the dreadful- 
ness of death to the natural heart of man. Nor is the 
fact that many seek death, as suicides, an argument 
against the proposition. If you analyze the suicide's 
motives, you find he does not really seek death, but an 
escape from misery. The man who is pursued by a 
tiger may leap from the precipice in his desperate de- 
sire to escape the raging beast, but surely it cannot be 
said of him that he is fond of leaping from a precipice 
and in his fondness seeks it. The very man who takes 
the fearful leap would have shuddered, in his unex- 
cited moments, at the thought of the precipice and 
the plunge. The suicide, then, does not, any more 



DESIRE FOR DEATH. 135 

than the easy death-bed, prove aught against the state- 
ment that death is man's universally dreaded enemy. 
This is why you turn from the unwelcome subject or 
speak of it in bated breath, why you hang its memo- 
ries and associations with gloom, and why you are 
ready to pay down all you have for a ransom from its 
relentless grasp. The great uncertainty, all bristling 
with forebodings, terrifies you as your most formida- 
ble foe. 

There is, besides this, a dread of death in its merely 
physical character, derived from the notion of a bodily 
struggle — a suffocation — a death agony, in which form 
a fear of death is too often found among the children 
of God. Indeed, I know of no other form in which 
a fear of death can exist for them. They dread death 
much in the same way that they would dread a surgi- 
cal operation or the rack. A vivid imagination and 
sensitive nerves anticipate dissolution in exaggerated 
representation, and in this low and crooked view the 
soul is disturbed. Perhaps, also, the force of habit, 
formed when unregenerate, is to be traced in some of 
these unseemly experiences of the Christian heart. I 
say " unseemly," which brings me to my other remark, 
as to — 

2. Why Christians ought to desire death. 

We, who are saved by the blood of Christ, have our 
future made certain, and all forebodings removed from 
it, and in this we differ from the unsaved in the very 
points which make them dread death. Do some dis- 
pute my premise, and say : " We Christians have no 
such certainty at all, and forebodings of the eternal 



136 DESIRE FOR DEATH. 

future are by no means removed entirely from our 
thoughts " % Then I reply, " You dishonor your 
Master, the Infinite God and Saviour; you fail to 
recognize the fulness of His free grace, which He as- 
serts is sufficient for you, and of which He declares 
i by grace are ye saved.'' You are still holding on to 
some self-righteous idea of fitness for heaven and of 
preparing yourself for its holiness and bliss. Of 
course, this being the case, you not only cannot desire 
death, but you actually dread it. You exhibit the 
anomaly of one freely and entirely saved from the 
future retribution dreading that retribution, and mak- 
ing your life restless and unhappy through fear of a 
slain enemy. You are like Israel in the desert under 
the mighty tokens of their Deliverer's presence and 
power, yet stupidly and shamefully whining out their 
fears of calamity. The Lord, forsooth, had led them 
out in so marvellous a way only that they should be 
devoured." What an idea of God and His salvation 
was that ! It must seem strange, indeed, to such 
Christians to be urged to desire death. They have 
yet the preliminary lesson to learn, not to dread death. 
My dear Christian hearers, do you not know that 
" the sting of death is sin," and that " the blood of 
Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin," and that these 
are the two Gospel blows that settle death forever for 
us and leave us no enemy at the grave ? 

But I wish to lead you to a higher plane of thought 
and motive than this negative freedom from the fear 
of death. I wish you to look forward to death with 
a genuine aspiration after it, so that Paul's sublime 



DESIRE FOR DEATH. 137 

language in the text will exactly express the temper 
and tendency of your mind. I cannot stop to talk 
with you about youi fear of death's physical character. 
You are much mistaken in putting such a character as 
you do upon death physically considered, but even if 
you were right, you ought to remember that sufficient 
unto the day is the evil thereof, and that when God's 
help is wanted it will be given to His own, and not 
before. To embitter your life and damage your use- 
fulness because of a fear of physical suffering is a 
cowardly procedure not at all in harmony with high 
Christian devotion. Look beyond the physical crisis. 
It is to that glory which lies beyond that I would urge 
your attention. It was that which evoked the lofty 
wish of the apostle. Fellow-Christian, we are to love 
death as we love the gate of Paradise or the messenger 
from our Heavenly Father's house bringing His dear- 
est message. When Jesus forgave our sins He cleansed 
our souls with His blood, He renewed us ; but our 
bodies were not renewed, and their contact even mars 
the renewal of our souls. These bodies must be re- 
moved before Christ's work in us and/b^ us can be 
realized by us. With them we'll be rid of sin and in- 
firmity. If we see aright this fact, we shall be as glad 
to lay aside the whole body as we are to have cut off and 
buried out of sight a gangrened arm or leg ; yea, as 
far more ready as sin is worse than disease. The de- 
sire to be rid of sin, as it finds an approach to us 
through the body, is a legitimate desire, and one to be 
entertained and cherished by the soul that has received 
an unction from the Holy One. This is not the sui- 



138 DESIRE FOR DEATH. 

cide's idea of being rid of trouble and misery. The 
two are too often confounded. David's cry, " that 
I had wings like a dove, for then would I fly away and 
be at rest," was anything but a noble utterance ; and 
the first stanza of Dr. Muhlenberg's beautiful hymn 
is unworthy the rest : 

"I would not live alway — I ask not to stay 
Where storm after storm rises dark o'er my way, 
Where the few lurid mornings that dawn on us here 
Are enough for life's woes, full enough for its cheer." 

The second stanza rises grandly out of this cowardly 
complaint : 

" I would not live alway, thus fettered by sin, 
Temptation without and corruption within." 

To fly from discomfort and pain may be very natural 
and in some cases very proper, but it contains no ele- 
ment of sublimity in it ; but to fly from sin, to seek to 
avoid its defilement, to long after a spotless holiness in 
the very likeness of God, is both unnatural and sub- 
lime. 

And yet glorious as is such a motive to the desire 
for the heavenly home, there is a higher still, and this 
gave the emphasis to Paul's ardent words. " To be with 
Christ " is the only argument he uses for his aspira- 
tion, "Having a desire to depart"; yes, to have this 
body dissolve, this breath cease, this blood congeal, 
these eyes close ; why ? that / may depart. / am 
not breath or blood, or eyes or body. I am imprisoned 
by all these. I am kept away from Christ by these. 
They must be set aside before I can escape and depart, 



DESIRE FOR DEATH. 139 

not to be unconscious, not simply to be at rest, but to 
be with Christ. Jesus has wrought my right to the 
heavenly kingdom into which this flesh and blood can- 
not enter. He has given me the earnest or pledge of 
the right's enjoyment in the Holy Spirit who teaches, 
assures, and comforts me, and now all I wait for is the 
dropping away of this flesh and blood, that I may enter 
into the joy of my Lord. I hear Him say, " I have 
gone to prepare a place for you ; where I am, there ye 
shall be also. " My salvation was my union with Christ, 
and my glorification will be my completed union with 
Christ. 

In the contemplation of Jesus the redeemed soul 
rises above all other considerations. Poetry, and a 
perfectly true and inspired poetry, may declare the 
varied pleasures of the future Paradise ; affection may 
tell of the parent or the child who has gone before ; 
but beyond poetry and affection, and yet not depress- 
ing either, but lifting them both with itself, is the 
Christ-oneness which, in its pure aspirations, is the 
divine magnetism of the renewed heart. The love of 
Christ is an absorbing but not an excluding love. So 
far from it, the love of the brethren is actually com- 
mensurate with the love of Jesus. The more we find 
our comfort and strength in the contemplation of the 
Saviour, the more we are pleased to discover His like- 
ness and spirit in the persons of His own people, and 
the more we are drawn toward all men as the poten- 
tial temples of His beauty. We love our children and 
our kindred the more ardently and unselfishly, when 
we love Jesus supremely and unspeakably, and the 



140 DESIRE FOR DEATH. 

heart that is most desirous of reaching heaven because 
Christ is there, is the heart that views with highest 
anticipations the reunion in that home of the saved 
with the dear ones from whom it has been separated 
here. No fibre of affection has to wither in order that 
the love of Christ may attain its proper growth, but 
all affection is purified and sanctified by this pure 
and sacred devotion. There is a high and heavenly 
romance in this affection, where romance is not op- 
posed to truth, but to the humdrum of a grovelling 
human monotony. Most romantic and truest of all 
things is this enthusiastic love of Christ. 

I wish I could fill the souls of the young who are 
here with this enthusiasm of love for the Loveliest. 
God, as man, teaching us at every experience with the 
tenderest sympathy raised to a divine intensity, and 
gently persuading us to the open door of pardon through 
His own suffering, is a theme for the rapture of devo- 
tion beside which all ordinary romance is dull. There 
is so much of the mere technics and philosophy of re- 
ligion thrust forward in the world ; so much of specu- 
lative theology and polemical metaphysics, that the ex- 
quisite power of the cross of Jesus upon the affections 
is impeded, and the rich love-side of religion is almost as 
completely hidden from many as the other side of the 
moon. Now, all the intellectual orthodoxy in the uni- 
verse could never produce Paul's glorious aspiration. 
Paul, with the soundest sense and highest culture, 
gave himself up to the rapture of the personal love of 
Christ. It was this which gave him the motive of life, 
" The love of Christ constraineth me." It was this 



DESIRE FOR DEATH. 141 

which taught his eagle eye to penetrate the heavens, 
while his lips exclaimed, " I desire to depart and be 
with Christ, which is far better." "To be with 
Christ." Oh! word of transport! under the power 
of this completed companionship anticipated by the 
heart that Jesus has taught to love Him, how can we 
but welcome death and urge its coming as the coming 
of our Beloved, " Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly." 



THE LOKD'S SUPPER. 

1 Corinthians xi. 24-26 : " The Lord Jesus Christ the same 
night He was betrayed took bread, and when He had 

GIVEN THANKS, He BRAKE IT AND SAID : TAKE, EAT, THIS IS 

my body which is broken for you ; this do in remembrance 
op me. And after the same manner also He took the 
cup, when He had supped, saying : This cup is the New 
Testament in my blood ; this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, 
in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat this bread 

AND DRINK THIS CUP, YE DO SHOW THE LORD'S DEATH TILL He 
COME." 

The Lord's Supper is a very simple ordinance, 
though representing the profoundest mystery to the 
human mind. It is the eating bread and drinking 
wine in memory of Christ as the one who died for 
us, but the death thus memorialized was the atone- 
ment for sin, and was the death of the Eternal Word 
become flesh, and that life and death, with all the 
precious and comforting things we know of them, 
must nevertheless be ever an impenetrable mystery 
to our finite minds. There is no mystery in the 
Lord's Supper, but a wonderful mystery in that which 
it memorializes. Regarding the Lord's Supper we 
may make the following remarks : 

1. It is commanded by our Lord, u This do in 
remembrance of me " is the order of our Lord Jesus 
(142) 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 143 

himself to all His disciples. A disciple who refuses 
to go to the Lord's Table, or who neglects it, is 
directly disobeying the blessed Master. All excuses 
are vain. One says, "I can have holy thoughts 
about Jesus and His death without going to the 
table." But that is not the question. Doubtless you 
can have holy thoughts without going to the table, 
but the question is not about having holy thoughts, 
but about obeying the command of Jesus your Lord. 
Though you saw no good in the exercise, yet it 
would be your duty to go, simply because your 
Saviour commands you. Another says, u But I have 
been so worldly this past month or two, I cannot go 
to the Lord's Table." What an excuse ! and yet it is 
one most commonly made. We are so worldly we 
cannot go near our Lord ! Why, it is just the time 
to go to Him in every way we can, and beg Him to 
sanctify us. Our need of the Holy Supper is very 
great, and thither we should hasten. Where is the 
logic in saying, " Because I have been so worldly, I 
will now disobey my Lord " ? The command is as 
much to me when wandering off as when walking 
near. The words do not alter u Do this in remem- 
brance of me." I'm afraid that this view of the 
matter does not appear to the minds of some Chris- 
tians who keep away from the Eucharist. They do 
not think that they are deliberately breaking a divine 
command. They do not realize that they are also 
running directly counter to that saying of our Lord's, 
"If ye love me, keep my commandments." How 
can any Christian expect to enjoy the benefits of 



144 THE LORD'S SUPPER. 

Christ's love, if he wilfully and systematically set 
aside one of His commandments to be disregarded ? 
There are doubtless some now present who have 
habitually slighted this divine command, and yet 
they would deem it a hard thing to be cut off from 
our Lord. They count themselves Christians. They 
pray and they find comfort in God's word. They 
look upon other Christians as their brethren. Why 
do they keep away from the table of the Lord ? The 
same Lord who said, "Watch and pray" and 
" Search the Scriptures," also said, " Do this in re- 
membrance of me." Perhaps false notions regard- 
ing the Lord's Supper are floating in their minds. 
Let me essay to correct them. I remark, then, 

2. The ZoroVs Supper is not a judgment-seat 
Superstition has fostered the idea that the Lord's 
Table was like the ancient ark of God, which Uzzah 
died for touching. The elements have been clothed 
with a supernatural character and power in them- 
selves, so as even to demand worship, and a false 
church bows down to worship the consecrated bread 
as God. All this is the wildness of superstition. 
The bread is only bread and the wine is only wine. 
The value of the feast is solely in the faith of the 
partaker. Just as in prayer my words are worthless 
unless I have faith, so in the Eucharist my eating 
and drinking is but an empty form unless I have 
faith. The great law of holy association demands a 
reverential demeanor at the Lord's Supper, as it does 
in prayer, but it is not because there is any divine 
power or character in the emblems used. All that 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 145 

notion belongs to a system of priestcraft, by which 
holiness is supposed to flow through a priest me- 
chanically and so sanctify and even deify the bread 
and wine. It is simply Paganism introduced into 
Christianity. It is from such a false notion comes 
the idea that some judgment will come upon any one 
who goes to the Lord's Table when guilty of any in- 
consistency. It is true the Corinthians were punished 
by disease (in the apostolic day of miraculous inter- 
vention) for turning the Lord's Supper into a secular 
feast full of excess, not because the Lord's Supper 
was in its elements divine, but because any such 
travesty of a religious service is an abomination. Cer- 
tainly, any one who would go thoughtlessly and 
carelessly to the Lord's Table, just as one who goes 
thoughtlessly and carelessly to prayer, despises holy 
things and degrades himself. But this is a very 
different thing from going, when full of the con- 
sciousness of our sinfulness. Our Lord loves to have 
such come to Him in any of His appointed ways. 
This leads to a third thought : 

3. Worthiness in coming to the Lord's Table is 
faith in Christ as our Saviour. Worthiness is not 
our inherent goodness, but our trust in Christ's good- 
ness. "I'm not good enough" is the frequent 
answer to the question, " Why do you not come and 
remember Jesus at His table?" If our goodness 
were to be the standard, when should we be worthy % 
Who could ever reckon his own goodness as a pass- 
port to his God and Judge ? The thought is absurd. 
The apostle in our text says, " Whosoever shall eat 



146 THE LORD'S SUPPER. 

this bread and drink this cnp of the Lord unworthily 
shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord," 
that is, the unworthy partaker insults the Lord in 
His great redeeming work. But how does the apostle 
explain the word unworthily afterward? Hear. 
" He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and 
drinketh condemnation to himself, not discerning the 
Lord's hody." There is the definition of the un- 
worthiness. It is " not discerning the Lord's body," 
not recognizing our Saviour's death for us, for as He 
again says, " As often as ye eat this bread and drink 
this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come." 
The apostle, therefore, warns all thoughtless and 
careless persons to refrain from coming, but the 
humble-hearted disciple, however weak and fall of 
doubts and fears, however ignorant, however bur- 
dened, is welcomed, according to our blessed Lord's 
own invitation : " Come unto me, all ye that labor 
and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." 

4. The remembrance of Jesus is the remembrance 
not simply of His life, but especially of His death. 
"Ye do show the Lord's deathP It is not chiefly 
Christ's example, although that is so conspicuous, 
but it is His sacrificial work which we are to bear in 
mind. " He has made sin for us who knew no sin." 
"He bare our sins in His own body on the tree." 
He is " the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin 
of the world." He " died for our sins." " We have 
redemption through His blood." His church "He 
hath purchased with His own blood." " By His own 
blood He entered in once into the holy place, obtain- 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 147 

ing eternal redemption for us." " Te were redeemed 
with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb with- 
out blemish and without spot." " Thou wast slain, 
and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood." These 
are some of the many declarations of God's Word 
asserting the central fact of Christ's redemption to be 
His death. And this death we remember in the 
Eucharist. His death was our life. He died that 
we might live. He suffered that we might rejoice. 
And so — 

5. This holy supper is a feast of joy. It is not a 
place of sighing and mourning. It is solemn, but 
not sad. It is a place where of all others we are 
entitled to rejoice and give thanks, because our Lord 
Jesus has freed us from the curse. It is here ('tis 
true) we think of His death, but we think of it in 
the light of His present and eternal life and of our 
life with Him. It is death we commemorate, but it 
is a death which conquered death, a death which is 
the root of endless life. It was not by an accident 
that the bread and wine which symbolized His 
broken body and shed blood also symbolized the 
support and joy of life, and we only then understand 
the symbols when we exult in the strength given us 
by our Lord through His death. The supper is 
rightly called, from the Greek word used in the 
sacred narrative, the Eucharist — that is, the Thanks- 
giving. Here we give thanks, as our Lord did when 
He distributed the bread and wine, and see how 
good God is to us in delivering us from the only foe 
that is to be feared, that is, sin. The gloom that has 



148 THE LORD'S SUPPER. 

been hung about the Lord's Supper by some churcnes 
is directly contrary to the intention of the institution. 
It is like the Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the 
Feast of Tabernacles all in one, a time of spiritual 
gladness, and these churches have turned it into 
a day of atonement, a day of afflicting one's soul. 
Never was a more complete perversion of a divine 
institution. 

6. The Lord's Supper is a covenant feast. But it 
is not that we make a covenant with God, but that 
He makes a covenant with us. The only covenant 
between God and man that is worth anything is 
where God promises and man gratefully accepts. 
If man promises, then the covenant is sure to be 
broken. This cup (says our Lord) is the new cov- 
enant in my blood. That is, it is the old covenant 
of God's grace, which was formerly sealed by the 
blood of bulls and goats, now made a new covenant 
by the seal becoming Christ's blood instead. It is 
God's promise all the same as before, but now in 
place of the typical blood we have the real blood of 
the Divine Lamb of God. The feast is a feast where 
God who promises and we who receive the promise 
sit down together in an eternal friendship, made so 
by the blood of the covenant. Hence all notion of 
our vowing anything at the Lord's Table is utterly 
foreign to its character. All our hymnology and 
theological phraseology which employs the word 
u vow " is altogether erroneous, and only leads to 
a Romanistic and pagan self-righteousness. We vow 
nothing at all. We gratefully bow before God's 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 149 

grace and accept His wonderful love and mercy, and 
rejoice therein. That is our position. Such a posi- 
tion will necessarily prompt us to a holier life, but 
we do not vow a holier life. Such a vow would be 
presumption and folly. We hope to lead a holier 
life. We long to lead a holier life. We try to lead 
a holier life. But we vow nothing. The covenant 
is all of God's promise and our acceptance by faith. 
Let me here say in passing that all Old Testament 
vows were simply promises to give money or the 
equivalent of money to the temple or to the service 
of God. Even such vows belong only to a church 
in the shadow, to a typical church. They are marks 
of nonage. But in vain will you look for a vow 
approved of God (in the Old Testament) to be better, 
to grow in grace, to live nearer to God. We can 
pray for these things, but we cannot vow them. 
Doddridge's hymn (which we find in almost every 
collection), " Oh happy day that fixed my choice on 
Thee, my Saviour and my God," is spoiled by the 
second and fifth verses, one beginning, " Oh happy 
bond that seals my vows," and the other, "High 
heaven that hears the solemn vow, that vow renewed 
shall daily hear." It makes our union with Christ a 
legalism, instead of the acceptance of grace pure and 
simple. This is one of the most pernicious errors 
that have fastened upon the Lord's Supper, and it is 
found in almost every denomination of Christians. 
It is the starting-point of terrorism regarding the 
delightful Supper of our Lord, to which we should 
go with great joy and alacrity. 



150 THE LORD'S SUPPER. 

With these remarks regarding the character of the 
Eucharist, I would especially address those before 
me who are believers in the Lord Jesus, and who 
yet have never obeyed His command, " Do this in 
remembrance of me." 

You are keeping yourselves from much enjoyment. 
You are retarding your spiritual life. When the 
Lord has given you the Holy Sapper as a means of 
grace, and you resolutely refuse it, you cannot grow 
in grace. That refusal is a complete block in your 
road. The power and the comfort of the Gospel can- 
not be felt by you. I have already endeavored to 
show you the fallacy of your excuses. Our Lord 
Jesus is a treasury of peace and joy to the believer, 
but you cannot draw on that treasury, while you 
steadfastly neglect the conditions. Your Christian 
experience must necessarily be a very low and un- 
satisfactory one in such a case. But furthermore, you 
are setting a pernicious example. You are giving 
others a false idea of the Lord's Supper. You are 
teaching them either that it is a matter of small im- 
portance, or that it is a recondite mystery to shrink 
from, and both these teachings are false. You are 
keeping others from the helpfulness of the Eucharist, 
and so lessening their spiritual supports. Are you 
willing to bear that responsibility ? To each one of 
you the Spirit of God virtually says to-day, " Come 
in, thou blessed of the Lord ; wherefore standest thou 
without ? " 

One word to children. So soon as you are able to 
define your own love to Christ, you are ready to 



THE LORD'S SUPPER. 151 

come to His table. So soon as you can discern the 
Lord's body — that is, so soon as you can understand 
that Jesus died for you and be grateful to Him for 
His salvation — you ought to come to His table to 
remember Him. I do not expect a grown person's 
experience in a child. 1 do not expect a grown 
person's knowledge in a child. But if anything is 
true, it is true that a very young child can under- 
standing^ love the Lord Jesus. And of such we 
can appropriately quote our Lord's words and safely 
apply them to the Memorial Supper, " Suffer little 
children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for 
of such is the kingdom of heaven." Let parents take 
this Scriptural view of the subject and not keep their 
children from the Lord's Table because they are not 
aged saints. The memory of our dear Lord's death 
will be to us all the best guard against earthly evils, 
and that memory should get its central force in that 
ordinance which He Himself instituted, saying, " Do 
this in remembrance of me." 



THE CONNECTION OF SIN AND JUDG- 
MENT. 

Psalm ix. 16: "The Lord is known by the judgment 
which He executeth : the wicked is snared in the work 
op his own hands." 

All the false religions of the world begin their 
error in failing to recognize the character of sin, that 
it is an evil infecting the whole nature, that it is an 
alienation from God, and that no human application 
can cure it. Without this recognition there can be 
no true humility, no true repentance, no true turning 
to God for salvation. It is very natural that sinful 
man, with this ignorance of the character of his sin- 
fulness, should repel the thought of eternal punish- 
ment, and should even repel the thought of all pun- 
ishment from God, and scout all such doctrine as 
being hell-fire and brimstone theology fit for savages. 
From such a standpoint the Bible, of course, is a 
barbarous book, for it very clearly teaches these hor- 
rid doctrines, and so human philosophy in its ignorant 
pride loves to ridicule the Scriptures and show its 
sublime contempt for the teaching of prophets and 
apostles and of Jesus Christ himself. One of the 
forms of this ridicule is the picturing of God as a 
tyrant delighting in cruelty, or as a taskmaster hold- 
(152) 



THE CONNECTION OF SIN AND JUDGMENT. 153 

ing the lash over the innocent soul. Man is an 
inoffensive creature and God is a persecutor. This 
(they say) is what our Bible teaches, and then they 
burst into indignation against us, the dupes of such 
fables. If we suggest to them that perhaps they do 
not know very much of what the Bible teaches, they 
fall back on their learning and refinement, and pity 
our weakness. In vain we endeavor to show them 
that the God of the Bible is described at Sinai as 
" merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant 
in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, 
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin," and 
that at Calvary His name is written in living letters 
as " Love." In vain we endeavor to show them that 
He calls upon all and urges them to come to Him 
and be saved, using the tenderest language and 
promising the richest rewards. In vain we endeavor 
to show them that the whole meaning and intent of 
the Bible is mercy and salvation to our lost race, and 
that its dark colors only set forth its bright ones 
more forcibly. They will not hear, but they con- 
tinue their old cant of hatred and malignity against 
the sacred oracles, the same that Porphyry and Celsus 
indulged in, the same that the proud heart has used in 
every age since, in its impatience under the divine 
rebuke. Let us to-day examine those special feat- 
ures of the holy record which so exasperate the nat- 
ural man, and find out what are the judgments of 
the Lord, and what relation they sustain to the Gospel 
of salvation. 

1. First, then, the judgments of God are a neces- 



154 THE CONNECTION OF SIN AND JUDGMENT. 

sary background of the Gospel. The Gospel is good 
tidings of salvation, of a rescue from impending evil. 
Then there is an evil to be saved and rescued from. 
There is a calamity impending, or else we should not 
need or have a Gospel. As I said before, it is at 
this initial fact the unbelieving stumble. They do 
not appreciate the meaning of the dark cloud over 
them. They believe it to be a delusion. They only 
need to rub their eyes a little to rub it away. There 
is no reality in it. They cannot believe that they 
are lost and ruined souls, especially if they have 
healthy bodies and full purses. Their relation to 
God they do not understand. They have no spirit- 
ual eyesight by which they can see it. They com- 
pare themselves with gross forms of evil and, de- 
lighted with the contrast, they are satisfied with their 
standing. The high standard of infinite holiness 
they know nothing about. The words from heaven, 
"Be ye holy as I am holy," have no meaning to 
them, or if they have a meaning, they must be 
addressed to the savages of Africa, or to the crim- 
inal classes among us. They certainly cannot be 
addressed to the refined and moral elements of so- 
ciety. Jesus rebuked the young ruler for using the 
word " good " so glibly, as if goodness was the com- 
mon possession of men, or, at least, of respectable 
men. By this rebuke He showed him that his 
foundation was all sand, that he had no right idea 
of the thoroughly had condition of the human heart. 
Man's pride indorses the " newspaper religion " of the 
day, and reckons any act of benevolence or any lenity 



THE CONNECTION OF SIN AND JUDGMENT. 155 

toward sin as goodness, and makes no account of the 
soul's position toward God. But from God's point 
of view the heart of man is altogether detached from 
the source of good; it has no connection or affiliation 
with it ; it is selfish in its highest attainments, and, 
if left to itself, must become eventually absolutely 
isolated and self-consuming. The virtues that look 
fair on the exterior and are called by the names of 
patriotism, benevolence, affability, courtesy, and fam- 
ily affection have no root in God, and hence no real 
or permanent value. They are like the beauty of 
the countenance or the grace of bodily move- 
ment, very admirable in themselves, but having no 
spiritual connections. They do not come from a 
heart sanctified by the Spirit of God, nor do they 
produce sanctification. Because they are agreeable 
and commendable, they cannot claim to be godly, 
and it is only in the godly heart that any godly good- 
ness (and there is no other) can exist. It is for this 
reason that the Scriptures assure us that the whole 
world lieth in wickedness. All men, who are not 
renewed by the Spirit of God, are wandering away 
from God, and to this wandering and lost race comes 
the Gospel, calling upon them to turn to God and be 
saved. The alternative is, and must be, destruction. 
The judgments of God are therefore the necessary 
background of the Gospel, and they are short-sighted 
and ignorant souls who deprecate the preaching of 
these judgments. They would have no watchman 
give the note of danger when the house is on fire. 
They would have all say " Peace, peace," when there 



156 THE CONNECTION OF SIN AND JUDGMENT. 

is no peace. They would have ministers prophesy 
smooth things, when they know that eternal woe 
awaits the unconverted sinner. This is the folly of 
which human pride and human philosophy are guilty. 
Why did Christ come into the world ? Why did He 
suffer and die on the cross ? Why did His apostles 
labor through untold tribulations to martyrdom? 
Why is the Gospel proclaimed throughout the world ? 
Is it all to tell men to live as they lived ? to be what 
they were? to think as they thought? Were all 
these sufferings endured in order to show men that 
they were very good, and that they only had to go on 
in the same way to reach heaven ? Or was it to insist 
that men must be born again, that they must become 
new creatures, that they must abandon or expel the 
old man and put on the new man, that they must 
have the stony heart removed and the heart of flesh 
implanted, and that this all must be done by the 
nnion by faith with the Son of God, who alone 
atones for sin and sends His Spirit to sanctify? 
Here is the distinguishing mark of the Gospel. This 
is what differentiates it from all human philosophies ; 
and any attempt to square it with human philosophy 
is to degrade it and destroy it. The Gospel pro- 
claims a heaven indeed, but it also proclaims a hell. 
Men will accept the former, but they would reject 
the latter. The Gospel proclaims God's love indeed, 
but it also proclaims the everlasting punishment of 
those that reject it. The Gospel proclaims joy and 
peace unutterable, but it also proclaims weeping and 
wailing and gnashing of teeth. They that would 



THE CONNECTION OF SIN AND JUDGMENT. 157 

teach the one without the other are false teachers, 
cruel shepherds misleading their flocks and guiding 
them to ruin. It is the device of Satan to make 
men believe that they can go on in their godlessness 
and self-indulgence here as much as they please, and 
that the Gospel tells them that all will be made 
smooth and sweet for them hereafter. It is this 
false gospel that a so-called liberal Christianity 
preaches, which is no Christianity, but a paganism 
borrowing a few Christian phrases. And it is this 
false gospel which many in our churches practically 
uphold, whose lives are far from God, but who wear 
the name of Christian. The judgments of God form 
a side of the Gospel which they need to behold and 
study. 

2. But now, secondly, our text shows us that the 
judgments of God are the wilful achievements of 
the sinner himself The picture, often set before 
the mind, of God approaching ab extra and scourg- 
ing the sinner for his sins, a picture very naturally 
arising from our knowledge of punishment here as 
inflicted by the parent or the schoolmaster or the 
officer of the law, is not a correct view of God's 
dealings with the sinner. God does not approach 
ah extra, but He punishes the sinner by the working 
of a spiritual law, which He has ordained precisely 
as He has ordained the laws of inanimate nature. If 
a man put his hand in the fire, his hand is burned. 
God has punished him for his folly, but the punish- 
ment is through the operation of a law, established 
by infinite wisdom, and under which the most useful 



158 THE CONNECTION OF SIN AND JUDGMENT. 

results to society are obtained. If fire did not regu- 
larly burn, where would be our iron-foundries, our 
manufactories of all kinds, our steamers, nay, our 
houses, our clothing, and our food ? It is the very 
law that does all this good to man which burns my 
finger when I put it into the flame. To have excep- 
tions to this law whenever I put my finger into the 
flame would be to destroy the law and put nature 
under the capricious will of man. I am placed in 
this world with the mind and its faculties to be used. 
I learn that fire burns, and I am to have sense enough 
not to put my finger into the flame. I am a respon- 
sible agent, not an automaton, and I am to look 
where I walk and what I do. No one can but blame 
me if I run counter to these laws of matter which 
God has established. Man may wish to be free from 
them, but he cannot be. They are part of his envi- 
ronment, and he might as well wish to be free from 
his hands or his head. We are rational beings and, 
as such, are to adapt ourselves to the facts around us. 
Just so in our spiritual life we have the environ- 
ment of God's laws, established in infinite wisdom 
for the most useful and glorious results. But just in 
proportion to the usefulness and glory of these re- 
sults are, on the other hand, the terrific consequences 
of breaking these laws. I can burn my soul as well as 
tny finger. I can defy the laws which God has made 
for my spiritual being, and so can bring upon my 
spiritual life the unspeakable agony of spiritual suf- 
fering. And this is the secret of all punishment for 
sin. It is God's punishment, but the sinner wields 



THE CONNECTION OF SIN AND JUDGMENT. 159 

the rod with his own hands. In the words of our 
text, " The wicked is snared in the work of his own 
hands." Herein is the wonderful wisdom and justice 
of God revealed. " The Lord is known by the judg- 
ment which He executeth : the wicked is snared in 
the work of his own hands." You see how it is God's 
judgment and yet the work of the sinner's own 
hands. What folly, then, for infidels to talk of a 
cruel God, that would plunge His creatures into 
eternal ruin ! Is God cruel who burns my finger in 
the flame into which I myself thrust it? Just as 
much is God cruel who burns the sinner's soul in the 
everlasting burnings into which the sinner delib- 
erately casts himself by defying the laws of the 
spiritual life. The Lord executes the judgment of 
hell by those wise and righteous laws whereby men 
can be exalted to a heavenly exaltation, and whereby, 
by their defiance, the wicked is eternally snared in 
the work of his own hands. 

And now this great principle, which illustrates the 
action of sin in its finality, adumbrates that final 
action in this earthly life. The youth who defies 
the laws of morality and yields to the desires of the 
flesh breaks down his physical constitution and weak- 
ens his mind, and either dies young or loads his life 
with painful infirmities. The earth is strewn with 
these wrecks of dissipation. The so-called life of 
pleasure is only a prelude to a life of pain. Time 
spent in idle induJgence necessarily is followed by 
the time of weariness and despondency. The lying 
and deceitful man is setting snares all along his future 



160 THE CONNECTION OF SIN AND JUDGMENT. 

pathway. The passionate and vindictive soul manu- 
factures the assaults which afterward destroy him. 
No greater fallacy was ever entertained than that 
which so many young persons entertain, that they 
can sin now, and, when they grow older, can turn 
from their sins and have a smooth time. That 
is an impossibility. It is possible, indeed, for a sin- 
ner to repent and be saved by God's grace, but God's 
grace does not undertake to save the earthly life 
from the fearful consequences of wilful sin. The 
deep scars will remain, and many a wound will bleed 
afresh all through this life, even where the forgive- 
ness of God is received and the hope that maketh 
not ashamed is gained. Many a saint of God is held 
down from the higher enjoyments of the life of 
faith by the bitter memories of a wilful past and 
the presence of evil thoughts which remain to him 
from his career of sin. Every lie, every cheating, 
every act of anger, every work of lust, is a sad dis- 
count on the peace of the soul, even where the soul 
becomes renewed by the Holy Spirit. Much more 
is it true that every evil action does its corrupting 
work in the life that is never regenerated. It brings 
the soul down to a lower level. It makes it more 
open to the possession of Satan. It renders it less 
accessible to grace. It is one step more toward the 
final hell. The wicked is snared in the work of his 
own hands. 

Brethren, in view of this eternal principle, so 
clearly set forth in God's Word, how odious sin 
becomes to the right mind ! How false it is to talk 



THE CONNECTION OF SIN AND JUDGMENT. 161 

of little sins ! How false it is to make light of sin ! 
What alternative have we but to turn away from all 
the seductions of the flesh and of the world ? And 
how can we do this, unless the superior attractions of 
Christ our Saviour, His love, His holiness, His glory, 
win our souls ? All other plans will fail. Human 
resolution is of no account. We may sign a thou- 
sand pledges, and we shall break them all. There's 
no anchorage for the soul, which will keep it from 
drifting into the rapids of sin, but the Lord Jesus 
Christ. He alone can hold us fast, when the whirl- 
winds of passion would carry us away. He alone 
can give us the divine calmness which speaks with 
authoritative voice, " Get thee behind me, Satan." 
Brethren, our consistency in the Christian life is in 
dwelling in Christ. Dwelling there, we shall despise 
the vanities of the world and escape those gilded 
sins which cause so many Christians to fall. We 
shall there spurn the invitations of the godless to 
come and join them in their schemes of evil and 
their gay triflings with time and talents, and we 
shall be sec are, outside of the line of the divine 
judgments which we have been contemplating. 

If there be any here to-day who know nothing of 
Jesus Christ as the refuge for the soul, I would 
earnestly beseech them to consider the principle of 
the divine government enunciated in the text. You 
are directly in the current of the divine judgments. 
You are ensnaring yourselves in the work of your 
own hands. You are sinning against the spiritual 
laws of your being, and must inevitably meet the 



162 THE CONNECTION OF SIN AND JUDGMENT. 

inexorable demands of those laws. You can no 
more escape your eternal damnation than the man 
who leaps from a tower can escape the mutilation of 
his body. And this is no edict of a cruel God — it is 
your own work entirely. It is God's judgment, only 
as it is the working of His holy and righteous laws. 
To flee from the wrath to come is your one duty. 
Nothing else is to be thought of. And you com 
flee — this very moment you can find a sure, an 
eternal refuge in Christ. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF TEMPTATION. 

Matthew vi. 13: "Lead us not into temptation." 

The Greek word which is commonly translated 
u temptation " in the New Testament, has the old 
double meaning of that word, which we generally 
now express by two distinct words, " temptation " 
and " trial." The Latin word " tento" or " tempto" 
whence we derive our word " temptation," also had 
the double meaning. The root idea is "to try or 
prove " a thing, to test it so as to show its quality or 
value, but as such trial is often made in order to ex- 
pose the faults of a thing, and is also made to show 
the worth and high value of a thing, the word came 
to be used with both meanings, according to the ob- 
ject of the one " trying." If Satan tries us, he tries 
us in order to develop our wickedness ; but if God 
tries us, it is to develop faith in Him. To the former 
we are now apt to confine our use of the word 
" temptation," and to the latter we assign the word 
" trial," but it was not so in King James' day, and 
hence we read in the translation of Scripture of that 
day, " God tempted Abraham," where most certainly 
it is not intended that God endeavored to expose and 
increase the sin of Abraham. We are to keep these 

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164: THE PHILOSOPHY OF TEMPTATION. 

two applications of the word in mind as we read the 
sacred volume. We have many examples in English 
of a word of neutral meaning gradually becoming so 
commonly used for one application as to lose almost 
altogether its use in the other. For example, the 
word " disappoint " is such a neutral word, meaning 
simply to fail in an appointment or expectation. But 
it is almost always used for such a failure as brings 
sorrow, whereas it might be used for such as brings 
joy. But in this latter case we now put the adverb 
" agreeably " before it, and say, " I was agreeably dis- 
appointed." Without the adverb it would mark a 
sorrow. So " temptation " may be a trial for our 
good or a trial for our harm, according to the inten- 
tion of the one tempting or trying. 

Still again, we may readily conceive that the same 
course of events may be used by Satan to tempt us 
to evil and by God to strengthen us in faith. The 
events then become a temptation to us in both senses. 
God permits Satan to tempt us to evil. In such a 
case God is tempting us too, but in the sense of try- 
ing us. Satan's purpose is our ruin. God's pur- 
pose is our welfare through renewed experience and 
strength. 

Let us apply these principles to some of the texts 
of Scripture where the word occurs : " God did tempt 
Abraham " (Gen. xxii. 1) ; i. 0., God did put Abra- 
ham's faith to the test to strengthen it. " Wherefore 
do ye tempt the Lord ? " (Exod. xvii. 2) ; i. e., 
" Wherefore do ye make trial of the Lord's patience 
as to when it must cease \ " So Jesus says, " Why 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF TEMPTATION. 165 

tempt ye me ? " (Matt. xxii. 18) ; i. e., " Why do ye 
test my ability by such a question ? " " That Satan 
tempt you not " (1 Cor. vii. 5) ; i. e., that Satan 
seduce you not into evil. " They that will be rich 
fall into temptation " (1 Tim. vi. 9) ; i. e., into allure- 
ment to evil. "Blessed is the man who endureth 
temptation " ; i. e., who bears the trial, whether it 
come directly from God (as Abraham's did) or from 
Satan, permitted by God. " Let no man say when he 
is tempted, I am tempted of God ; for God cannot be 
tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man." 
Here it is evident and expressed, that the temptation 
is to sin, an inducement and allurement to commit 
iniquity. 

With this explanation and illustration of the word, 
we are prepared to examine and understand the sixth 
petition of the Lord's prayer, "Lead us not into 
temptation," The Ke vision has the better verb in 
this passage, "Bring us not into temptation," since it 
is not a leader going before, but simply a power 
exerted that is denoted. God is besought that His 
power may not be exerted toward our delivery to 
temptation. But how is God's power ever so used ? 
We have seen that it is so used in two ways : first, 
by direct order, as in the case of Abraham, and this 
would include the divine arrangement of life's cir- 
cumstances (or, as the modern philosophers call it, 
our environment) ; and secondly, by permitting 
Satan to allure us to sin. This latter God may do to 
strengthen His own people through showing them 
their weakness, and that only in Him can they be 



166 THE PHILOSOPHY OF TEMPTATION. 

safe ; or He may do it when He finally gives over the 
sinner to sin and eternal death. Let us consider each 
case, and we will regard them in the inverse order. 

1. The prayer cannot have relation to the final giv- 
ing over of the sinner to Satan, for the sinner in such 
case would not wish to pray at all. The child who 
says "Our Father" has not a final giving over to 
Satan to fear. The two parts of the prayer could not 
be made to agree with such a meaning. 

2. The second case is where God permits Satan to 
tempt the soul to evil. Why does God give such per- 
mission ? Because (1) we need to know by experi- 
ence our own weakness. We need to have a realizing 
sense of the fact that the powers of darkness have 
such allies in our own hearts that, if left to ourselves, 
we are completely at their mercy. This is not plaguing 
or tantalizing us. It is making us know the simple 
truth, which we ought to know. Unless we know 
the truth, we cannot walk according to the truth. 
All forms of human pride in philosophy and conduct 
arise from ignorance of this great truth of human 
weakness before sin's allurements. Men fall into 
sin's snares, and yet think that they have power to re- 
sist sin if they wish. They make good resolutions 
and then fall again. Then, instead of seeing that 
they must inevitably fall before the stronger power, 
they think that they made some mistake in their 
resolution and preparation, and that they will not be 
snared again, but when the temptation comes, again 
they fall. It will be always so, until the soul discovers 
that it has absolutely no strength against sin. Now 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF TEMPTATION. 167 

God suffers Satan to tempt the soul to sin, in order 
to teach this great lesson of human weakness. He 
suffers Satan to tempt His own redeemed children 
for the same purpose, for they too often forget how 
weak they are, and need the same treatment with the 
unbeliever. Good Job had to be so taught, and Satan 
was allowed to tempt him so that Job fell into a 
wretched condition of proud talking and boasting 
and complaining, until his own development of folly 
before God opened his eyes and made him fall down 
and confess his abhorrence of himself and his sincere 
repentance. God did not here directly tempt Job to 
evil, for God cannot do that to any being. That 
would be collusion with evil. But God allowed 
Satan, who is always watching to do it, to tempt Job 
to evil, in order that Job might be led into the good 
and true path, by no longer relying on himself but 
only on God. Let no one say that this is the same 
thing as if God had directly tempted Job to the evil. 
There's a world-wide difference. Is there no differ- 
ence between your urging your child to meddle with 
the fire, and your letting him in his waywardness 
meddle with it under your parental oversight? You 
know the difference at once. The former would 
make you guilty of seeking his hurt. The latter 
shows you active in seeking his good. And that is 
just why God allows evil to tempt His children, so 
that He may be said to bring them into temptation, but 
not to lead them into it. 

But (2) not only to have us know our own 
weakness does God do this, but also that, through 



168 THE PHILOSOPHY OF TEMPTATION. 

knowledge of our weakness, we may go to Him 
for strength. We have self-reliance so deeply rooted 
in us, that it takes a great deal of rough experience to 
root it out. We think (in spite of a correct logic) 
that we have some moral strength; and hence our 
acceptance of God, though perfectly honest and true 
so far as it goes, is but partial. We do not take Him 
for our All in all. Hence He wishes us to feel that 
our flesh and heart fail, that He may be the strength 
of our heart. The Psalmist's highest strains of devo- 
tion use the frequent note, " O Lord, my strength," 
and hence his joy and courage. " The Lord is the 
strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" 
To know our weakness and have no refuge, as is so 
often the case with the practical atheists of the world, 
is despair ; but to know our weakness and to have God 
as our strength is the very top of joy. It is then the 
Christian sings the paradox, " When I am weak, then 
am I strong." It is the response to that most gra- 
cious word of God, " My strength is made perfect in 
weakness." It is no little hint of security, but it is 
the perfection of strength which is given to the faith- 
ful heart. Luther, at Worms, is only a type of every 
Christian who is strong in the Lord and in the power 
of His might. Is not such a consummation well 
worth the temptation of the devil, to which the Lord 
exposes us at times ? If the road be foul, is not the 
goal exceeding fair ? Would we have it otherwise if 
we could 1 The strong Christian is the weak one. 
The strongest Christian is he who in his heart of 
hearts knows and feels that he is of himself utterly 



THE PHILOSOPHY OP TEMPTATION. 169 

powerless before evil powers. So long as lie has a 
grain of trust in himself, his strength is marred and 
defeat is before him. 

3. But the third case of our temptation is where 
God directly, by our constitution and environment, 
tries us. Here it is no allurement to sin, which is 
permitted, but the behests of duty which call for 
action. Our relations in life to others call for self- 
denial, self-sacrifice, and positive aggressions in vari- 
ous directions. God has directly placed us in these 
relations which demand these duties. These duties 
are His commands. They are trials. They are of a 
thousand forms. They are given on purpose to cause 
us to exercise our highest powers as guided by the 
Holy Spirit. They demand the Divine strength, just 
as do the temptations of Satan. These trials are of 
the same nature as Abraham's trial in the command 
to offer up Isaac. They are calls upon us to give up 
something very dear, to do that which is directly 
counter to our natural tastes and desires. The daily 
little self-denials of life come legitimately under this 
head. We would like to be rid of these annoyances. 
But what would we be if we had not been disciplined 
by them ? To what a fearful size our selfishness would 
have grown if it had not been reduced by these re- 
peated depletions! What are these but mercies in 
disguise, which yet produce in us so much fretf ulness 
and impatience. Are they not knocking off rough 
angles and polishing the surface of character ? Are 
they not the strokes of the divine artist forming us 
more and more into the likeness of Christ ? We may 



170 THE PHILOSOPHY OF TEMPTATION. 

see how in such direct trials from the Almighty, Satan 
sees his opportunity and presents his special tempta- 
tion to sin, not now in the way of gross or positive 
vice, but in the way of a rebellious position toward 
duty. So the two ideas embraced in the word 
" temptation," and which we in modern English gen- 
erally distinguish by the two words u temptation " 
and " trial," are seen to be closely allied after all. 
In every case the Christian may see that God is be- 
hind all, seeking the soul's welfare; and hence the 
apostle James' remarkable saying, " My brethren, 
count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations." 
But now, if this be the philosophy of temptation, 
why should we pray, " Bring us not into temptation " ? 
Should we not rather pray, " Keep us ever in tempta- 
tion " ? Have we not found temptation to be such 
a helper of grace that we cannot do without it, 
and hence cannot pray against it? Have we not 
reached a contradiction ? Wait a moment. Is a 
medicine to be always taken, as if it were a bever- 
age? Because it has a health-giving power, must 
it take the place of ordinary food and drink ? May 
we not by prudence in diet and mode of life lessen 
the necessity of taking medicine ? Ah ! here is the 
cue to our petition, "Bring us not into temptation "; 
not that we do not wish to grow in grace ; not that 
we do not wish to be strong and healthy Christians, 
but that we desire to be so strong and healthy as 
not to need the trial and temptation. We long to be 
so full of love to God and man that the severe disci- 
pline may be no longer needed. And so this petition 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF TEMPTATION. 171 

corresponds to all the others in the Lord's prayer. 
The whole prayer seeks the highest development of 
the Christian life. It asks for the fulness of God's 
kingdom upon earth and in our own hearts. The first 
three petitions, " Hallowed be Thy name," " Thy 
kingdom come," " Thy will be done in earth as it is 
in heaven," all look to the perfection of Christ's work 
in a pure and perfect church. The other four peti- 
tions, " Give us this day our daily bread " (not sim- 
ply food for the body, but the nourishment of our 
souls), " Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debt- 
ors," " Lead us not into temptation," and " Deliver 
us from the Evil One," all look to the perfection of 
Christ's work in our own hearts, when, fully nour- 
ished by God's Word and Spirit, we have all love 
toward our fellows, and will not need the teachings 
of trial and temptation to keep us close to God. The 
petition, then, which we have been considering is not 
a cowardly cry to escape trial in every case, but a 
prayer for that higher holiness of heart which will 
diminish our need of trial. So long as we need trials, 
let us from a high standpoint of observation " count 
it all joy when we fall into divers temptations," 
humbly using the lesson of entire dependence on 
God, which is thus administered in a gracious though 
afflictive providence ; but this does not militate against 
our prayer to God to bring ns not into temptation 
and trial through our ready heed to former lessons 
and our closer life with God. 

Let us then, dear brethren, keep our ears attentive 
unto the Lord's words, and seek to do His holy will 



172 THE PHILOSOPHY OF TEMPTATION. 

in all our daily conduct ; let us weigh everything in 
heavenly balances, let us bring everything to the 
touchstone of Divine truth, let us purify ourselves 
from all filthiness of the flesh, let us live here on 
earth with our eyes fixed on the heavenly habita- 
tions, let us be forever done with worldly compro- 
mises which disfigure our piety and disgrace us before 
the higher intelligences, and then we shall be able to 
offer up the petition of our text and its connected 
one with a profound meaning in the thought and a 
happy expectation of the divine answer, "Lead us 
not into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil 
One." 



THE PKECIOUS BLOOD. 

1 Peter i. 19 : " The precious blood op Christ." 

How food is Peter of this word "precious" as 
applied to the things of salvation ! He tells us in 
the chapter where our text occurs "that the trial of 
our faith is much more precious (timion) than that 
of gold." In the next chapter he refers to Jesus as 
a stone chosen and precious, and then quotes from 
Isaiah, " Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner-stone 
elect, precious " (entimon), and then he adds, " Unto 
you therefore which believe He is precious" (time). 
In his second epistle he writes to them who have 
obtained " like precious (isotimon) faith," and speaks 
of the " exceeding great and precious (timion) prom- 
ises." No other writer in the New Testament uses 
the Greek root, thus translated, in such connection. 
It is a peculiarity of Peter. It is a mark of the 
intensity of spirit with which he valued his salvation 
in Christ. He remembered his impetuous pride and 
his denial of his Master, and from this standpoint of 
his gross unworthiness he saw the wonders of his 
redemption by the blood of Jesus. The word is one 
applied to most rich and costly gems, and refers to 
value. In one of its forms it denotes that which 

(173) 



174 THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 

receives honor. Our own word "precious" is our 
nearest synonym for the Greek, and well conveys the 
double idea of esteem and affection. 

We have seen in our quotations that Peter counted 
the promises about Christ precious, that he reckoned 
the faith of Christ precious, and the trial of that 
faith equally precious. He also calls Christ himself 
precious, and in our text it is the blood of Christ that 
receives the same impressive title. We now have to 
do with this last. Why does he select the blood of 
Christ ? Why not the life of Christ ? Why not His 
teachings? Were not His life and teachings most 
conspicuous manifestations of His divine excellence ? 
I suppose Peter would have called them precious, 
too, but by his emphatic use of the word with the 
blood of Christ, he seems to put the blood in a very 
prominent place. Surely no one who wished to show 
Christ as fulfil ling His mission by being our ex- 
emplar in a true and holy life would have ever 
thought of making His blood so conspicuous. It is 
true we might speak of a martyr's precious blood, 
where we would refer to the value of the blood in 
witnessing for the truth of a holy cause, but we can- 
not speak of Christ's blood as that of a martyr. He 
was a Jew by nation and religion, and put to death 
by Jews. Their charge against Him was not that 
He taught a new religion, but that He used blas- 
phemy. Christ's death, instead of being a witness 
to the truth, as was the death of martyrs, was a blow 
to the truth. It staggered His own disciples. It 
appeared to be the downfall of His pretensions and 



THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. If5 

the ruin of their hopes. It was His resurrection 
which declared Him the Son of God with power. 
It was His conquest over death which gave the song 
of triumph to His followers, and made the death of 
martyrs afterward so precious as testimonies to their 
living Lord. 

The death of Jesus is thus intrinsically different 
from that of the martyrs, and it is not as we say 
of martyrs that we say of Him, " His blood is 
precious." There must be some other power in that 
blood, some other meaning for Peter and for us. 
How may we reach that meaning better than noting 
his use of the epithet in the other cases enumerated. 
In all of these we find the subject directly touching 
salvation. The promises, the faith and its trial, the 
person of Christ, these are precious because they are 
to him personally and to every believer the very ap- 
paratus of salvation. There is a direct efficiency in 
these that there is not in martyr-blood. Christ is the 
Saviour, the promises invite to Him, and faith lays 
hold on Him. Now the blood must have a like 
direct action in our salvation. It is an efficiency in 
some way. — Again, we see that the expression draws 
our view of Christ himself to His blood as the 
peculiar centre of interest regarding Him. It is not 
only that the blood must have an efficiency, but it 
must be the very 'kernel of Christ's efficiency, and 
hence the hinge of our salvation. How exactly this 
tallies with John's words, " The blood of Jesus 
Christ cleanseth us from all sin," and with the voices 
of the glorified saints in heaven, " Thou hast re- 



176 THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 

deemed us to God by Thy blood," and with Paul's 
declaration that we " enter into the holiest by the 
blood of Jesus"! What a strange use of the word 
blood is this, if martyr-blood is all that is intended ! 
How mistaken an emphasis upon the blood of Christ, 
if it was His example and life which is the efficient 
cause of our salvation ! 

But we have a context that explains all, that 
shows us why the blood of Jesus was so precious 
to the apostle and is so precious to all believers. 
" The precious blood of Jesus, as of a lamb without 
blemish and without spot." We are immediately 
carried back to the significant ritual of God's 
ancient church, where we find so often repeated 
the solemn charge that the victim for sacrifice 
must be without blemish. We see the innocent 
lamb, marked as symbolically pure by its spotlessness, 
pouring out its blood upon the altar, and that blood 
taken as the saving and sanctifying efficiency of the 
lamb and dashed upon the door-posts or sprinkled 
upon the man who was to be cleansed. It is a very 
false view of a bloody sacrifice to suppose it meant a 
gift to God of the victim. What is called the meat- 
offering (that is, an offering of flour cooked or un- 
cooked, or of the first-fruits), was a gift to God of 
the thing offered, and, as such, was eaten by God's 
priests, after a small portion was burnt as showing 
that it belonged to God. But the bloody sacrifice 
represented not a gift to God of the lamb, but a gift 
to God of the suffering and death. It was an offer- 
ing to God of punishment for sin. If the lamb had 



THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 177 

been given to God, as a gift simply of the lamb itself, 
like the meat-offering, it would have been given to the 
priests, and they would have carefully preserved it 
alive, as cherished and protected by God. They ate 
the meat-offering, because there was no life taken 
away in that. In the case of the lamb, they would 
as God's representatives merely have preserved it and 
used its wool, as this should be produced. But to 
slay the little innocent, to make the blood flow from 
its ghastly wound, — there was no giving of the lamb 
to God in that. It was the giving to God of suffer- 
ing and death, the offering up to Infinite Justice of 
a punishment for sin. 

I dwell upon this because prominent teachers 
have endeavored to destroy the whole significance 
of the sacrifices, by asserting they were only gifts 
of gratitude to God, symbols of thankfulness. If 
they had been such, what is the meaning of such a 
passage as this : "In those sacrifices there is a re- 
membrance again made of sin every year, for it is 
not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats 
should take away sins. Wherefore, when He cometh 
into the world, He saith, c Sacrifice and offering thou 
wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me.' " 
Then, after speaking of the offering of the body of 
Jesus Christ once for all, the Scripture goes on and 
says, " Now this one, after He had offered one sacri- 
fice for sins, sat down on the right hand of God." 
And then again, in speaking of our gain by this 
sacrifice, these words follow: "Having therefore, 
brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the 



178 THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 

blood of Jesus." No man in his right senses can 
imagine all this has reference to a gift of gratitude 
to God. The sacrifices prefigure a great sacrifice, 
that of Christ, and when this great sacrifice is his- 
torically offered, the rest cease. If they were tokens 
of gratitude, they would never cease. It is blood 
that is emphasized. It is a blood to take away sin, 
and through this removal of sin man enters into 
heaven. Bear in mind, then, that the bloody sacri- 
fices are not to be interpreted by any natural notions 
of offering gifts to God, but by the imnatural notion, 
only obtained by man through revelation, of offering 
to God a punishment, a suffering, a penal atonement 
for the offerer's sin. It is this, and this only, which 
gives point to the Baptist's words, "Behold the Lamb 
of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." It 
is this which gives a meaning to the otherwise mean- 
ingless words, u The blood of the Lamb." It was a 
blood that does not simply cheer us by its history, or 
encourage us to faithfulness, or make us despise per- 
secution, as the martyr- blood does, or even kindle our 
love to the one who suffered in His service of love 
for us, as does the blood of patriot or philanthropist. 
But it was a blood that redeemed us. " Thou," cry 
the glorified ones in heaven, " hast redeemed us to 
God by Thy blood," and our own context says, " Ye 
know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible 
things, as silver and gold, .... but with the pre- 
cious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish 
and without spot." It was a blood that efficiently 
and directly, by no moral influence persuading men, 



THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 179 

but by meeting the holy justice of God, saved the 
condemned sinner. Hear the apostle Paul, " God 
hath set forth Christ Jesus to be a propitiation (that 
is, an appeasing of justice), through faith in His 
blood .... that He might be just and the justi- 
fier of him which believeth in Jesus." Hence we 
see why it is called "the blood of the everlasting 
covenant, wherewith we are sanctified." 

What a converging combination of Scriptures is all 
this with regard to the penal character of Christ's 
sufferings as our substitute and representative ! Does 
not such a contemplation of Christ's blood by the 
believer prompt him to say " the precious blood of 
Christ " ? He goes to Calvary, and there bows before 
the wonderful sacrifice. " That cross (he cries) has 
made me free — that blood has cleansed my soul — 
that suffering cancels my sin. It is not poetry and 
romance that excite me. It is not sentimental sym- 
pathy which makes this spot so ineffably holy. It is 
the action of God's holy truth. This blood is where 
justice and mercy meet in my ransom and renewal. 
This is no appearance or spectacle or show or symbol. 
It is the fulfilment of all symbols. It is my poor lost 
soul being found, it is my poor dead soul being made 
alive. It is God entering our race and bearing its 
sins while bringing it righteousness. That blood is 
my eternal union with God. Precious blood ! precious 
blood!" 

Such being the potency of Christ's blood and its 
relation to the believer, why is it that so many treat 
it with unconcern, nay, even with contempt \ The 



180 THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 

question suggests the answer. It is unbelief which, 
makes the vast mass of mankind pay no more regard 
to the cross than to a heathen idol or a romancer's 
tale. The seat of this unbelief is always the heart. 
The affections are fastened upon low objects and 
fascinated by them, and will not suffer themselves to 
be drawn off to other and nobler ends. In this 
degradation of the soul by its wilful prostitution to 
earthly purposes, the calls to a spiritual life are dis- 
agreeable and annoying. The first movements of 
conscience are resisted, and in the resistance devices 
are framed for the security of the soul in its carnal 
tastes and occupation. The main device is the erec- 
tion of a bulwark of rational unbelief. I mean by 
rational unbelief an unbelief situated in the rational 
faculty, as distinguished from the unbelief of the heart 
and affections. The unbelief of the heart and affec- 
tions cannot justify itself. It is sheer neglect. It is 
wilful opposition. So it contrives this rational unbe- 
lief as its defense, and behind this barrier it ensconces 
itself securely. It constructs this barrier by seeking 
out difficulties in the Gospel which the mind cannot 
unravel, dark points on which the reason can obtain no 
light, seeming contradictions in the metaphysical 
analysis of Scriptural doctrine, and, calling these per- 
plexities, holds them up triumphantly, saying, "How 
can you expect one to believe such things % " It is 
fairly with an air of injured innocence it makes this so 
plausible plea, till it actually persuades itself that it is a 
genuine rational duty to reject the Gospel, and forgets 
that the wilful heart made up all this opposition. 



THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 181 

Now all these difficulties arid metaphysical contra- 
dictions lie in every department of thought. They 
do not belong to the Gospel and God's revelation, 
but to the Unite character of the human mind. 
There is not a science that does not present insolv- 
able difficulties and direct contradictions, but does 
any man of common sense reject them because of 
that ? No ! the positive evidences overwhelm all 
the side oppositions of this sort, and just so would 
it be to every soul with regard to the overwhelming 
evidences of God's gracious revelation, if it were 
not for the unreasonable action of the depraved 
heart, which would never act in this unfair way 
with any other subject than that of God's revealed 
truth of redemption. Hence I would never argue 
with unbelievers on the specific subjects of their 
rational unbelief. I would simply say, "Do with 
this subject of religion as you do with every other. 
Let all difficulties be in abeyance, while you behold 
the amazing evidences of the Gospel's truth. See 
this Gospel in its marvellous texture. See this per- 
fect .Jesus, and note that He is nothing at all unless 
He be a Redeemer of sinners by His blood. No man 
could have invented such a character as Jesus, any- 
more than he could have invented the sun. No man 
could have written that Holy Word, any more than 
he could have painted the colors of the rainbow, or 
have laid the rocks in their strata. Let all this 
Gospel light shine full upon you, warming you and 
cheering you, and then, when you see and feel its 
power, it will be time enough to talk of your dif- 



182 THE PRECIOUS BLOOD. 

ficulties. But now I'll not talk geology or physiology 
or metaphysics with you. All that is a cunning de- 
vice of the devil, and your own heart in partnership 
to keep the Gospel off your heart and conscience." 

" To us who believe He is precious." That "blood 
which has given us a sure hope, which has bought 
us from the bondage of Satan and secured us a home 
in heaven, which has made us the dear children of 
God, and enabled us to say " Father " to Him who 
made and governs all — that blood is precious indeed. 

We worry not because of the profound things 
which we cannot understand. God has millions of 
such things both in nature and in grace. But we do 
rejoice in the grand things which we do understand, 
and the very centre of these grand things is the blood 
of Christ. That is the moving power of the whole 
circle of redeeming grace. It is to that blood we 
bring our sighs and tears and fears, and take from 
it in exchange the joyful courage which is heaven 
begun. It is that blood sprinkled on us which makes 
us holy, and enables us to defy the great adversary 
and all his host. Precious blood ! Precious Jesus ! 
we sing now as we shall sing hereafter, " Thou wast 
slain and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood." 



GKACE. 

Revelation xxii. 21: "The grace op our Lord Jesus 
Christ be with you all." 

Geace has two meanings in Scripture, the two 
being closely related. One is the inherent beauty of 
the divine character, and the other is the loving exer- 
cise of that character toward man. God's grace, in 
the first definition, is the foundation of all His deal- 
ings with sinners, and in the second it takes the form 
of compassion and mercy because we are sinners. 
The result of that grace and mercy in the soul that 
accepts them is peace, and hence we have the sig- 
nificant formula, " Grace, mercy, and peace be unto 
you," that is, " God's divine love exercising itself in 
mercy to sinners and so bringing peace to the sinful 
soul, be yours to enjoy." 

" The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you" 
is the short form of this same prayer. And here we 
find this holy prayer as the very last words of the 
Bible. The Bible begins with creation ; it ends with 
redemption. The power of God is the first word, 
and the love of God is the last word. Between this 
power and love the whole universe is governed. 
These last words of the Bible are like the loving 

(183) 



184 GRACE. 

arms of God stretched out to all men and bestowing 
His blessing on all. The whole Gospel is embodied 
in this benediction. The last apostle closes the book 
of inspiration with this concentration of the Gospel. 
It is as much as to say that if any are lost, it is not 
from God's neglect, much less from God's decree, 
but from the wilful rejection of a grace universally 
bestowed. It shows God's face to man as a face of 
love. We close the sacred volume and exclaim : 
" There ! God's revelation is one of grace. Its latest 
utterance is love." 

I. Note, first, the universality of this benediction. 
" The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." 
Surely we shall not limit this " all " to the members 
of the seven churches of Asia. That would be a 
marvellous anticlimax after these far-reaching words, 
" Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life 
freely." No! we cannot limit this benediction to 
the seven churches. It belongs to " whosoever." It 
tells the joyful story that God is the Saviour of all 
men, though specially of those that believe ; that is, 
that as far as God's love is concerned He saves all 
men, but since many reject that love and its salvation 
He is the final Saviour only of those that believe. 
We have to reiterate it, as against any false con- 
struction of the doctrine of predestination, that God 
desires and seeks the salvation of all men. His 
Word says this over and over again, and the whole 
invitation of the Gospel is based on this fact. God 
confronts sinful man and begs him to turn and re- 
ceive His Spirit. " Turn ye ; for why will ye die ? " 



GRACE. 185 

is God's cry. He is no accepter of persons. He 
makes no distinctions. His Gospel or good tidings 
are expressly declared by the angels to be unto all 
people. Men have accused us Presbyterians as limit- 
ing the grace of God on God's side, and as represent- 
ing God as arbitrarily selecting certain persons to be 
saved, while He was wholly indifferent concerning 
the rest, or even hostile toward them. Now it is 
unfortunately true that some Presbyterians have held 
this most unscriptural and revolting doctrine, and 
there is a form of Calvinism of which this dreadful 
reflection upon God is the keystone. But the great 
mass of Presbyterians hold no such view. They be- 
lieve that God has foreordained all things that come 
to pass, but that foreordination neither contradicts 
God's love for the world nor man's independent will. 
It is a foreordination that is in perfect harmony with 
man's free choice whether to accept God's love and 
grace or to reject them. 

God's election is expressly declared in the Bible 
to be according to His foreknowledge. God has 
established in the spiritual, as in the material world, 
certain wise and just laws under which man lives, 
and according to which he prospers or suffers accord- 
ing as he observes them, and the law of grace in 
Christ is one of these. Whoso resists this law of 
grace must perish, and God's foreordination of that 
perishing is in accordance with His foreknowledge 
of it. God's grace is not limited by this. It is sim- 
ply man's wilfulness that limits the application of the 
grace. Let no one accuse Presbyterians of teaching 



186 GRACE. 

or holding a restricted view of God's grace. They do 
not. A few theologians may hold this doctrine, and 
may seek to support it from our Confession of Faith, 
but they will ere long have the expressions of that 
Confession which seemed to justify them so changed 
that they can get no support there any longer. 
Such theology cannot stand a moment before the 
free Gospel. God calls to all to come and be saved. 
And God is not trifling with man. He means what 
He says. Every soul can appropriate the gracious 
call to itself. 

II. Note, secondly, the closeness of the grace. The 
preposition is " with." " The grace of our Lord 
Jesus Christ be with you." It is not hefore you, to 
look at, nor behind you, where you cannot notice it, 
nor on you, for an ornament, but it is with you for a 
cherished companion seen and known and used, 
walking with you, talking with you, accompanying 
you wherever you go. And it is God's loving grace 
that is this companion, the greatest of all gifts, the 
most delightful of all adjuncts to the soul. The 
presence of the grace implies the presence of God 
himself in His love. He is at our side. He is nearer, 
closer than any earthly friend could be. He has 
no imperfections as earthly friends have, which may 
modify our enjoyment of His presence. He is the 
perfection of blessedness to the soul at all times, and 
the more we realize His presence and fellowship, the 
more we partake of that blessedness. But, says some 
timid soul, is it right so to consider the Infinite God ? 
Have I any right to look upon Him as a friend by 



GRACE. 187 

my side? Go to God's Word and see. "What means 
this: "Our fellowship is with the Father and with 
the Son " ? Why was Abraham called " the friend 
of God " ? Did not God come to us in His Son 
Jesus Christ, that we might feel this very nearness 
of God to our souls ? With all His iniinite great- 
ness, He walks as the personal friend of each trusting 
heart. Hear Him speak : " Thus saith the high and 
lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is 
Holy, I dwell in the high and holy place, with him 
also that is of a contrite and humble spirit." See 
how the ineffable greatness of God is perfectly con- 
sonant with His warm and close friendship with the 
humble and trusting soul. It is a marvellous fact, 
but let us not be slow to receive it. It is the use of 
this fact that will make us strong and lift us above 
the power of earth or hell to harm us. 

There is too much of Christianity that puts God 
far off, that encourages the idea of the Christian's 
ever coming before God as a semi-alien with a 
doubting cry of u Spare us — have mercy upon us, 
miserable sinners." That is a very proper cry for 
one coming out from sin to God for pardon, but it is 
a very improper cry for one who has received pardon 
and been owned a child by God. It was a good cry 
for the publican before he was justified, but after he 
was justified, it would not have been good for him 
to go again to the temple and repeat the cry, u God 
be merciful to me a sinner." We are ever to recog- 
nize our sinfulness and our needs, and ever to recog- 
nize God's wonderful mercy, but we are to have faith 



188 GRACE. 

in God, and when He says, " Go in peace ; thy sins 
are forgiven," we are not to go back with the old 
cry, as if God's words meant nothing. I think that 
one reason why Christians use this language of newly- 
awakened souls toward God is because they stay in 
that original position and never fully enter into the 
enjoyment of grace. They live worldly lives, and 
so, as they cannot appreciate the fellowship of God, 
they have no higher prayer than " God be merciful 
to me, a miserable sinner." God continues to them 
a God afar off. He is a mere conscience-God and 
not a heart-God. Now what all Christians should do 
is to realize God's presence and grace, to accept 
gratefully all that Christ has done for them, and to 
use the high privileges of peace and joy which His 
blood has purchased. This is the legitimate life of 
faith. This is what our Lord wants of us, not cold 
and distant servitors, but warm and close friends. 
He honors us with this relation. It is a reality. We 
dishonor Him by refusing it. He, the Lord of Glory, 
speaks of us as " brother," " sister," " mother." Is 
all this to be slighted by us, or are we to believe 
Him and act accordingly ? 

III. Note, thirdly, that this divine grace with us 
is that of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here is the name 
that stirs our hearts — the name of all that is holy and 
blessed to our souls — the name of Him whose love 
for us cannot be measured by our finite minds, who 
came on earth to show us in the most wonderful 
way how much He loved us and to allure us to His 
saving arms. Yes ! the grace of God is the grace of 



GRACE. 189 

our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no difference. 
There is no angry God ready to destroy us and 
another standing near and begging Him not to do 
it. That is a heathenish idea that, with many other 
heathenish ideas, came into Christian theology. No ! 
the Father and the Son are one. He that hath seen 
the Son hath seen the Father. The Son is also the 
Everlasting Father. There is but one God and His 
name is Love. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ 
is the grace of God. What then ? is there no God 
that destroys? Yes, there is a, God that destroys. 
And it is the same God that loves and saves. And 
how does He destroy ? Is it from a heart of hatred 
and violence, as the heathen represent in their gods ? 
Certainly not. He destroys by giving up the resist- 
ing sinner to his sins. Where grace is refused, there 
sin destroys, and in that awful alternative God, 
though Love, is said to destroy. But He does not 
desire this death of the sinner, but that he may turn 
from his wicked way and live. He desires all men 
to be saved. Let not, then, the notion exist for a 
moment in our minds that God the Father is a 
frowning God, and God the Son a smiling God. 
What a reflection that is on the word " Father " ! 
God the Father and God the Son are one God of 
love and salvation, the Trinity being a mystery that 
we cannot penetrate. 

The only aspect in which we have a right to view 
God is as He is manifested in Jesus Christ seek- 
ing to save our lost souls. And here what a field of 
delicious research is opened to us in this phrase, 



190 GRACE. 

" grace of our Lord Jesus Christ " ! Are we lonely ? 
do we feel isolated ? are there no friends in whom 
we can trust? Here in Jesus we have a friend, a 
companion, one who was just like one of us (ex- 
cept without sin), one who was tried, tempted, 
weary, disappointed, opposed, and misunderstood. 
He listens to our every word with interest. Every- 
thing that interests us interests Him, because we 
have become His own and He has brought us into 
everlasting union with Himself. No trouble so lit- 
tle in our experience that has not His sympathy. 
Are anxieties ours ? Are lions in our way ? Are we 
looking with forebodings toward the morrow ? The 
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is sufficient for the 
occasion. That grace can remove every obstacle, 
overcome every fear, and make our disturbed souls 
calm. It is no myth — no fancy. It is a reality. It 
only demands faith for its full enjoyment. The laws 
of the spiritual world are such that grace acts accord- 
ing to faith. We cannot fathom the mysteries of 
mind. We cannot tell where faith opens the chan- 
nel for grace to run. But we know the fact that 
" Be it unto thee according to thy faith " is the for- 
mula that expresses the great truth, and which shows 
the reason why so many Christians live in gloom. 
The grace of Christ is there, ready for use, but they 
fail to use it. They have faith for many other 
things, but no faith for grace to lift them out of 
trouble. And they are led to consider the Lord's 
promises as defective, when the defectiveness is all 
with them. Our faith is the receptacle, into which 



GRACE. 191 

the blessed Jesus pours His divine grace, but if we 
have no receptacle, we, of course, enjoy no grace. 
That, dear brethren, is the secret of so many un- 
happy Christians. And why haven't they faith ? 
There are many reasons. It may be too little prayer 
— too little Bible — too little meditation — or too much 
world — too much flesh — too much self. The plant 
is not watered and it will not grow, or the plant is 
trodden on and thus marred. Oh, do not blame 
Christ's grace, but blame yourselves. That glorious 
grace never fails. It answers every call. It fills 
every want. It satisfies every longing. There is no 
failure nor exception in it. Christ never fails. We 
cannot form too strong an idea of Christ's love for 
us and His closeness to us. He has told us this in 
the strongest language. " He that eateth my flesh 
and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in 
him." Can you find anything closer than that? 
And now hear how the beloved John translates 
that: "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the 
Son of God (that is, the heart confession), God 
dwelleth in him and he in God." Christ and God 
are one. 

Now, brethren, do we think enough of this won- 
derful grace of our Lord Jesus Christ ? Do we use 
it as a grand reality % Or is it to us merely a propo- 
sition like "two and two make four"? Why, it 
should be our life. We should feel the presence of 
Jesus with us and in us at every step. It is this 
which He wishes of each one of us. This is the 
walking by faith and not by sight, which the apostle 



192 GRACE. 

tells us is the Christian's normal way of walking. 
Alas! why do we conform to the world's way? 
Why do we make our calculations and ground our 
hopes and fears on the world's basis ? It is because 
of this we have all the perturbations and distresses 
of the world. Let us bear in mind that if we wish 
to enjoy the Lord's grace, we must give up the false 
dependence on the world's grace which is deceptive 
and disappointing. The Lord Jesus wishes us to 
receive His grace as furnishing us with motive, pur- 
pose, and energy in life, but it is our part to receive 
it. He cannot force it upon us. That divine guid- 
ance and protection, productive of such inward peace 
and joy, which are implied in " the grace of our Lord 
Jesus Christ," cannot be ours, unless we positively 
and determinately take it and use it by faith. And 
such taking and using the divine grace is impossible, 
if we are taking and using the world's ideas and 
methods instead. Just as we cannot serve both God 
and mammon, so we cannot have both Christ and 
the world to guide and guard us. They are antag- 
onistic to one another. We must have one or the 
other. There can be no compromise. It is com- 
promise that kills our Christianity. When our 
blessed Lord died for us, it was that we might be 
wholly His. He did not do a work for us and then 
go away and leave us. He died to save us and gave 
a new life to us by His Holy Spirit. He wished to 
be ever with His saved ones — an ever-present Saviour. 
His love would not permit Him to leave us for a 
moment. Now it is this great truth, my brethren, 



GRACE. 193 

which we need to realize more than we do. The 
fact that the Lord Jesus Christ with His infinite 
grace is ever with us in things small and great, 
ready to meet our every emergency, should govern 
our whole lives, and we should therefore be ever 
looking unto Jesus. Oh ! of how many troubles we 
should be rid if we did this ! We should not try to 
run a race with the world — we should not envy the 
world its tinselled crowns — we should be satisfied 
with what our Lord allots and anticipate the peace of 
heaven. 

Dear brethren, let us use our privileges. Let us 
hold a close and constant communion with our Lord 
Jesus Christ. Let us feel daily our high and holy 
advantages in Him. Let us glory in this heavenly 
fellowship, as we have a right to, and as we ought 
to, and then, under the operations of His divine 
grace, we shall triumph over sin and the world and 
defy the powers of evil. It is as we live in Christ 
and Christ in us, that we enjoy Christ's glory — the 
gift of His grace. 



MAN'S OEIGINAL SONSHIR 

Luke iii. 38 : "Adam, which was the son of God. 

A great stir has been made in our day by the sup- 
posed discoveries, but real speculations, of Darwin, 
according to which man is descended from the brutes. 
Whatever Darwin's own views may have been, there 
is no doubt that the eager tribe of infidels have seized 
on these speculations to degrade man, and make him 
tributary to his animal nature. They would cut him 
off from all higher law than the passions and pro- 
clivities of his nature as akin to the beasts, and so 
discharge themselves of all responsibility to God. 
They would have no check to sin beyond that which 
selfish worldly prudence would dictate. It is true that 
the Darwinian theory, if correct, would refer only to the 
origin of man's ftody, and man's body is not man ; but 
infidels, in their blind anxiety to be rid of God's moral 
law, do not regard this distinction, and readily make 
the leap over the impassable gulf between body and 
soul as seen in man, and reduce the highest virtues 
to the level of inanimate material, or at least to the 
level of brute instinct. It is a strange fact that man, 
in order to escape God, is anxious to make himself a 
beast. Man's sins thus become no more sins than the 
(194) 



MAN'S ORIGINAL SONSHIP. 195 

natural actions of tigers and serpents ; and conversely, 
the virtues of a philanthropist, a patriot, or a saint are 
on the same brute level. It needs not very deep 
penetration to see what would become of our race, if 
this theory could once be actually believed by man- 
kind. We would not have to go far to find hell. But 
man is so constituted that he never could believe such 
folly. He may try to believe it. He may use the 
theory as a shield against his own conscience, but it 
will give him but a flimsy protection. His conscience 
will pierce him. His native sense will expose him. 
He knows, all the while he hides behind it, that his 
defence is of paper. The most degraded man has 
that within him which tells him he is degraded, and, 
therefore, that he belongs to a higher plane. 

But let us turn to the voice that speaks from heaven, 
and note how truly our being responds to its story. 
Let us turn to God's Word, and leave man's weak 
speculations, and find what this supernal authority 
says touching the origin of man. If we look at the 
testimony of Scripture regarding every one who is in 
Christ and renewed by the Spirit, there is no difficulty 
in furnishing passage after passage declaring man's 
sonship to God. We have fellowship with the Father 
and with the Son. We are taught to say, "Our 
Father " in the Lord's prayer. The Spirit teaches us 
to say, " Abba, Father." We are the children of God, 
heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ. But at 
present it is not our object to show that believers 
are made the children of God, and have both the 
privilege and duty of approaching God as their Father. 



196 MAN'S ORIGINAL SONSHIP. 

It is our purpose to show that our whole race is 
sprung from God, not by creation merely, but by a 
higher process, which we call sonship. That man has 
fallen from the rights and privileges of such high 
birth is emphatically true, and hence his restoration 
to sonship in Christ is as a new creation. It is per- 
fectly true that fallen and unrenewed man has no 
right to call God " Father," for he has been cast out 
for his sins, and our Saviour's own words to the rebels 
against God are, " Ye are the children of the devil, 
and the lusts of your father ye will do." Hence the 
glib way in which unrenewed men speak of God as 
their Father is simply presumption, and their cant 
phrase of the All-Father can have no other meaning 
in reality than " Creator of all." The special, tender 
relation of Father is not there. The home and house- 
hold idea is not there. 

But the fact that man has fallen from his sonship's 
rights and privileges makes it a truism that he once 
had them. Man as first found in Paradise is more 
than a creation. As a creation he has affinity both to 
animals and to the mountains and rivers, but he is 
something more. The forming man from the dust of 
the ground, whether that was instantaneous or took a 
million of years, was, we grant, a creation as of 
whales or horses, but the breathing into his nostrils 
the breath of life means something more than was 
ever done to beasts. It means the impartation of the 
life of God, and is analogous to that act of our Lord 
when He breathed upon His disciples and said, " Ee- 
ceive ye the Holy Spirit." In short, it was the giv- 



MAN'S ORIGINAL SONSHIP. 197 

ing of sonship. It was a species of generation. And 
hence in the genealogy, from which we take our text, 
we read : " Which was the son of Enos, which was 
the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which 
was the son of God" It is in the light of this grand 
truth that I invite you to the following reflections : 

1. We gain a view of the awful character of sin. 
If we were brutes, or the descendants of brutes, no 
moral law could bind us, and no sin could be alleged 
against us. The various forms of vice which now 
shock the common conscience of the race, would be 
in no way different from virtues. Right and wrong 
would give place to shrewd and stupid. Might and 
cunning would make all the right there could be. 
But when we trace our origin to God and find that 
we are partakers of the divine nature, then the moral 
perfections of God become the standard of our char- 
acter. The truth, and righteousness, and justice, and 
holiness, and love of God become the pattern which 
we are to follow. Feeling, thought, word, and deed, 
should all be marked by the divine Spirit. Envy, 
jealousy, malice, fraud, uncleanness, are not to have 
the slightest connection with our hearts ; for we are in 
the heavenly sphere, where all these are known only 
as the enemies of God, and belonging to the king- 
dom of evil. One touch of these is defilement of 
heavenly purity. Man, as the son of God, was formed 
for Paradise, and for a perpetual communion with 
his Heavenly Father. He had an independent will, 
but that will was to find its delight in the exercise of 
divine faculties amid holy things, and for holy pur- 



198 MAN'S ORIGINAL SONSHIP. 

poses. To use that will in any other way was to rebel 
against his high nature, to defy God, and to forfeit 
his heavenly privileges. Sin in man was thus a total 
wreck of his grandeur as the son of God. He left 
his kinship with the Most High to become a slave to 
his animal nature. He was excluded from Paradise. 
A holy God could no longer hold communion with 
him. Death, as the seal of sin, must be put upon him. 
The divine is lost in the human, and the word comes 
from the Holy Throne, " I have said, Ye are gods, and 
all of you are children of the Most High — but ye 
shall die like menP The children of God have be- 
come castaways. There may be differences in sins, 
but there is no difference in sin. The children of 
God have lost their high title, and are now only the 
children of men, and each one is an alien from his 
original Father. "The Lord looked down from 
heaven upon the children of men, to see if there 
were any that did understand and seek God. They 
are all gone aside ; they are altogether become filthy ; 
there is none that doeth good : no, not one." As I 
said before, there is no difference in sin, though there 
may be difference in sins. As looked upon from 
God, there are no little sins, for every sin is but a 
mark of the sinful heart alien to God. The differ- 
ence in sins is only from man's standpoint and a com- 
parison of man with man. It is like the difference 
between mountains and hills on the earth. To us 
they are marked and great differences. But to the 
astronomer who regards the whole globe they are as 
no differences at all, and if the globe should be repre- 



MAN'S ORIGINAL SONSHIP. 199 

sented by a sphere the size of an orange, a micro- 
scope could not detect any departure from the smooth 
surface. And yet it is this matter of " little sins " 
with which weak man consoles himself by comparing 
himself with his neighbor. He forgets that his whole 
nature is alienated from God, and that God's holiness 
can regard him only as a sinner. 

2. A second reflection from our subject pertains 
to the action of God in salvation. It is a Father 
striving to save a lost son. It is the movement 
of the Divine Heart, full of tenderness and affec- 
tion, and yet by reason of its holiness unable to com- 
promise with sin, or excuse it in the slightest. The 
holiness compels the sentence, " Ephraim is joined to 
idols ; let him alone," and yet the tender affection 
brings out from the divine heart the earnest cry, 
" How shall I give thee up, Ephraim \ " It is this 
wonderful Father-love which accounts for the great 
condescension and humiliation of Christ, the Eternal 
Son. The stupendous mystery of the Word becom- 
ing flesh, suffering the limitations and afflictions of 
our humanity, and bearing unspeakable agony as a 
sacrifice for sin, can be explained only on the ground 
of the overwhelming love of God. It is all comprised 
in the general formula, the Heavenly Father using 
every endeavor with earnest desire to restore His lost 
children. There is no mechanical coldness nor per- 
functory hardness in the act of God in salvation. 
There is no mere machinery of law at work. There 
is a beating heart of love moving everything — there 
is a dear and holy Father seeking His wandering ones, 



200 MAN'S ORIGINAL SONSHIP. 

and yet in His holy perfections ready to give them up 
to their chosen destiny of evil, if they persist in their 
rebellion. Why do not men see God in this mellow 
light ? Why do they think only of a Final Cause, or 
perchance of a distant Lawgiver? Why do they 
deny the very essence and heart of God ? Why do 
they ignore His glorious love? "There is joy in 
heaven over one sinner that repenteth." Why ? Be- 
cause love is gratified. God wishes all men to be 
saved, says the Scripture. Why ? Because He loves 
them as His whilom children. " God so loved the 
world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoso- 
ever believeth in Him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life." He would identify every castaway 
child with the only-begotten Son, and so bring him 
back into sonship. It is the only-begotten Son who 
sanctifies those that accept Him, and as " both He that 
sanctifies and they who are sanctified are all of one," 
"He is not ashamed to call them brethren." It is 
Christ who teaches us to say, " Our Father, who art 
in heaven," and so restores to us the exalted privileges 
of Paradise. It is the heart that is thus restored that 
can see the Father's heart moving in all the efforts at 
our salvation. 

Salvation is not man's merits earning anything, nor 
a philosophic machinery evolving anything, but it is 
God's earnest love recovering His lost ones and fold- 
ing them to His arms. It is a re-creating of sonship ; 
a ulodeaia, as the Greek word is, which is weakly in- 
terpreted " adoption," but which means much more 
— that is, the making of sons : sons that are not such 



MAN'S ORIGINAL SONSHIP. 201 

merely by anything analogous to our " adoption," but 
analogous the rather to generation. The son, so made, 
is again partaker of the divine nature, and of the 
divine holiness. Hence we have those marvellous 
words of Christ in His prayer for all who receive 
Him, w that they all may be one ; as Thou, Father, 
art in me and I in Thee, that they also may be one 

in us And the glory which Thou gavest me I 

have given them, that they may be one, even as we 
are one ; I in them and Thou in me, .... and that 
the world may know that Thou .... hast loved 
them as Thou hast loved me." See what a height 
of glory in true sonsbip is here described. And this, 
brethren, is salvation. 

3. Our third reflection on our subject touches the 
dignity of the converted soul. "]N"ow are we the 
sons of God," is the triumphant exclamation of the 
apostle John. And Paul testifies, " We are the chil- 
dren of God : and if children, then heirs, heirs of God 
and joint heirs with Jesus Christ." We have seen 
how awful sin is : that it has destroyed the privileges 
of son ship to God, and we have seen how marvellous 
is God's love that seeks to recover us, and now we see 
the wonderful dignity that belongs to every true be- 
liever as again a child of God, receiving his Heavenly 
Father's kiss and eternal welcome. The difficulty in 
realizing this is caused by the murky atmosphere of 
our sinful earth, by the old habits of our fallen 
nature, and by the stupendous character of the great 
fact itself. The old nature is still clinging to us not- 
withstanding our sonship. On every side we see the 



202 MAN'S ORIGINAL SONSHIP. 

luxuriant growth of evil. And with these adjuncts it 
is hard to realize that the holy God has exalted us to 
joint-heirship with His Eternal Son. Our faith is stag- 
gered by the sight of the corruption without and with- 
in us. And if our faith is staggered, brethren, we 
may understand how the unconverted world regards 
these statements of our exaltation in Christ as utter 
folly and dream. Nevertheless, it is true — true as 
God is true. It is God's work, not ours. His love, 
His wisdom, and His power have combined to rescue 
us and restore us, and it is for us to repeat after the 
apostle John, with humility, and yet with triumph, 
" Now are we the sons of God." It is from this high 
contemplation that we may reform our lives, and 
make them what they ought to be as the lives of 
God's own children. We look forward and know 
that we shall be like Christ, and, as the apostle ex- 
presses it, " he that hath this hope or expectation in 
Christ purifieth himself, even as He is pure." This 
is the way to become sanctified — to see our wonder- 
ful privileges in Christ, and to look forward to their 
consummation in glory. No one can have and exer- 
cise this hope without growing into Christ's likeness. 
What we Christians need, therefore, is the constant 
contemplation of our Lord, and all that He has done 
for us, and in order to this we are to make less of our 
worldly matters, or rather so use them as to make 
them subsidiary to these higher contemplations. The 
tendency of our natures is to look upon progress in 
holiness as a system of work, external work, by which 
we gain meritoriously the desired end. Legalism of 



MAN'S ORIGINAL SONSHIP. 203 

this sort pervades the Church of Christ, and hence we 
find two sorts of Christians : one, who are proud of 
their good deeds, and complacently view them as 
guarantees of spiritual value ; and the other, who are 
discouraged at their failures, and ready to despair. 
They have both the same error at the root of their 
sentiments. They both regard spiritual success as 
dependent on human works and worth, whereas 
spiritual success consists in accepting Christ's works 
and worth with a grateful faith. Human works and 
worth proceed from this grateful faith which receives 
Christ's works and worth. That is, holiness produces 
human works and worth, but human works and worth 
do not produce holiness. It is that Romish error that 
clings to so many Christians who are not Romanists. 
They seem to think that, by putting the merit in 
Christ and not in themselves, they would become 
spiritually lazy and careless — there would be no spur 
to good works. But they forget that love is the only 
true spur to good works, and that this love is fed by 
the contemplation of what Christ has wrought for us. 
And so we come back to our former truth, that it is 
for us to recognize our dignity as God's children, if 
we would grow in holiness. It is this that will with- 
draw us from the world's false ways and false pleas- 
ures. It is this that will fill our souls with satis- 
faction, whatever may be our earthly lot. It is 
this that will take away doubt and perplexity and 
fear. Let us then, dear brethren, assert ourselves 
as God's dear children, restored to the privileges 
of Paradise, and by our high birthright having 



204 MAN'S ORIGINAL SONSHIP. 

no sympathy with the things of darkness. As re- 
deemed from sin, let us abhor it. As enfranchised 
and made sons by Christ, the Eternal Son, let us have 
constant fellowship with Him. It is from the abyss 
of sin we have been rescued. It is the amazing love 
of God that has done it. Let us accept the grace in 
its fulness, and live before God and men as the sons 
of God. 

I need not say that the unrepentant and unrenewed 
sinner has no part in the dignity and glory of which 
we have been speaking. He is alien from God. The 
original sonship has no representation in him, and 
he has refused to have it restored by Christ. It is not 
for him to say, " Our Father." It is not for him to 
exult in the holy fellowship of the Father and the 
Son. Out of Christ the claim of sonship is blas- 
phemy. 

My hearers, which are we — the children of God, 
or still in our sins, and, if so, the children of the 
devil? 



GOD'S WALK WITH US. 

Genesis xviii. 17 : " And the Lord said, Shall I hide 
from Abraham that thing which I do ? " 

Abraham was called the father of the faithful, not 
because he was the father according to the flesh of 
God's ancient chosen people, but because he was the 
spiritual father of all God's people of every nation 
under heaven. He stands conspicuous, in an age 
when the knowledge of God had become dimmed by 
superstition and when the lusts of men had distorted 
religion from a pure worship to a degraded idolatry, 
as a man of pure faith and godly life, and a man 
whose high position as an independent and wealthy 
chief made that faith and godliness a lighthouse to 
the whole world. He walked so closely with God 
that he rarely stumbled in his earthly course, and 
when he did, his errors were not the gross and flagrant 
sins that abounded around him, but the results of an 
unbecoming timidity which sought other relief than 
the protection of God. Sins they were, and they 
show Abraham to have been human, but they do not 
stamp his character, or remove from his name the 
honorable and glorious title of " father of the faithful." 

We are accustomed to this phrase, "He walked 

(205) 



206 GOD'S WALK WITH US. 

with God," of such a worthy as Abraham, and we 
recognize its fitness, but the converse phrase is one 
we do not so often consider, " God walked with him." 
It is this form of the great truth that is suggested by 
our text. Abraham had seen three men approach 
his tent near Hebron, had gone out to meet them, 
had invited them to his home, had entertained them, 
and in the process of entertainment had found he 
had been entertaining angels unawares. "When the 
angelic messengers arose and took the way eastward 
toward Sodom, Abraham accompanied them. Two 
of them passed on ahead, and Abraham was left alone 
with the third, who proved to be Jehovah himself in 
human guise, the great Lord manifested, and hence 
the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the 
Father, who alone has manifested Him. To Abra- 
ham the Lord makes known at this time His purpose 
of destroying the cities of the plain, and permits 
Abraham earnestly and persistently to intercede for 
them. It was a marvellous walking of God with 
man, illustrating visibly the invisible walk of God 
with all His faithful ones. 

It was before the two angels passed ahead that God 
is represented as using the language of our text, 
" Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do ? " 
God, as it were, grants us a glimpse of the workings 
of the Infinite Mind. His counsel and purpose are 
seen as if in their formation. He uses the style of 
man, but it is to show a reality, not a dream — some- 
thing in God analogous to the consideration and reso- 
lution of man. God's thoughts are not as our thoughts, 



GOD'S WALK WITH US. 207 

and yet they are thoughts. He looks upon Abraham 
with affection. He desires to express that love. He 
stoops to his companionship, not proudly as man would 
do to an inferior, not mechanically as a God without 
feeling is supposed to do, not wantonly as a heathen 
god would be represented, but in the warmth of a 
true friendship, from which no sense of God's infinite 
greatness and of Abraham's sinful and finite human- 
ity can detract. It is only a shallow human philoso- 
phy that can make God's greatness withdraw Him 
from man. " Shall I hide from Abraham that thing 
which I do?" He was about to overwhelm the 
wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with destruc- 
tion, to bring down upon them the wrath which their 
persistent iniquity had been heaping up for the day 
of wrath. In one of those cities was Abraham's 
pious but wayward nephew, Lot. He had foolishly 
gone to dwell among those depraved wretches, and 
had in consequence tainted his family with the cor- 
ruption. It is a fearful thing for a godly man to 
choose an ungodly society for his children. God 
knew that Abraham was tenderly attached to his 
nephew, whom he had brought with him out of the 
heathen East to live more independently for God in a 
new country where no old ties might impede them. 
Abraham had maintained this independence, dwelling 
in tents, but Lot had affiliated himself with the worst 
of the land and dwelt in their cities. Still Abraham's 
affection and interest in his nephew were great. And 
now that God is about to destroy the city in which 
Lot was dwelling, will it not be well for God to tell 



208 GOD'S WALK WITH US. 

Abraham of His design? It will result in urgent 
petitions for Sodom, but what of that? This will 
only bring Abraham nearer to God, and God intends 
to make a way of escape for the loved nephew after all. 

Such is the picture brought before our minds by 
the text, and it suggests to our reflection the different 
phases of the great truth of God's friendly intimacy 
with His faithful child, not now so much the Chris- 
tian's walk with God, but God's walk with him. 

1. Our first reflection is, that the faithful soul re- 
ceives the confidence of God. The thought of our 
confidence in God is a familiar one. We are con- 
stantly exhorted to it, and our faith is essentially this 
confidence. But God's confidence in us is a thought 
by no means so familiar. It seems at first glance to 
imply our egregious self-righteousness, and to be at 
war with that spirit of humility and self-abnegation 
which we know should mark the sincere and true 
believer. How can God's omniscient eye fail to see 
our weakness, blindness, waywardness, error, all spot- 
ting our character and making us unworthy of con- 
fidence even by man? How can God then have 
confidence in us? And yet this question of God's 
that forms our text shows that God does put con- 
fidence in His saints. The same truth is uttered by 
David, when he says, " The secret of the Lord is with 
them that fear Him." Solomon repeats the same, 
" His secret is with the righteous." It is in the same 
strain that our Saviour himself speaks to His dis- 
ciples : " I have called you friends, for all things that 
I have heard of my Father I have made known unto 



GOD'S WALK WITH US. 209 

you." These texts could very readily be multiplied, 
impressing the truth upon our minds that God admits 
not only to His love, but to His confidence, the soul 
that puts its confidence in Him. How, then, are we 
to explain so strange a matter, which seems to be in 
conflict with the first principles of religious truth? 
It is by remembering that the work in our hearts is 
God's own work, that the Holy Spirit is our Sanctifier 
and Spiritual Helper, and that He is the guarantee of 
our spiritual life. God sees His own renewed creation in 
our converted souls, and, as with the material creation, 
He pronounces it all very good. He looks below all 
our weakness and folly to the pure and holy life that 
is implanted in us by His Spirit, and so He trusts 
Himself to us confidingly. It is not a tentative 
measure to see how we can be trusted, but a sincere 
and final act of a love that knows no change or re- 
pentance. He, so to speak, lays His whole heart out 
before us. He is not afraid that we shall betray that 
confidence. Though we may be Peters and deny, we 
cannot be Judases and betray. This is secured by the 
Holy Spirit within us. We may be very inconsistent 
and bring our souls into much difficulty and grief by 
our inconsistency, but still God has confidence in us, 
and is ever ready to reveal His secrets to us according 
to our degree of faith. The sense of this confidence 
of God in us is the most powerful incentive to our 
confidence in God. It surprises us into profoundest 
gratitude and joy, for it shows us the perfection of 
that love which God has for us. It is that perfect 
love which casteth out our fear. That perfect love 



210 GOD'S WALK WITH US. 

will correc* us when we go astray, but it will never 
distrust us. It knows that below all our errors, as sad 
as Peter's, there is the inner heart which says : " Lord, 
Thou knowest all things ; Thou knowest that I love 
Thee." 

2. Our second reflection is, that God reveals the 
future to His faithful ones. Hobbes said, as he was 
dying, that he was about to take a leap in the dark. 
And it is a very common saying of worldly men, that 
we know nothing of the future. By nature we cer- 
tainly do not. We know not what a day may bring 
forth. We could not even guess concerning the great 
future beyond the body's death. All that heathen 
nations have of a future of rewards and punishments 
in their belief is but the remains of primal revelation. 
Nature would teach that when a body dies the man is 
nowhere. His identity has perished. But God's 
revelation has illuminated the whole subject of im- 
mortal life. It has told us of heaven and hell, of 
eternal righteousness and eternal sin, that subsist in 
conjunction with eternal bliss and eternal misery, and 
thus much any one who reads God's Word can know, 
at least can treat as an object for his intelligence. But 
the special future of the special man is only known 
by the Spirit's revelation to the believer. When God 
takes a soul into His confidence, He tells it of its own 
happy destination. He does not hide the thing which 
He will do. He shows the believer the fearful doom 
of the ungodly, as contrasted with his own inheritance 
in God's eternal friendship. The Spirit beareth wit- 
ness with his spirit that he is a child of God, and if a 



GOD'S WALK WITH US. 211 

child, then an heir, an heir of God and a joint heir 
with Jesus Christ. The believer is thus begotten 
again unto a living hope, that has as its object the 
inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth 
not away, reserved in heaven for him as kept by the 
power of God through faith. This is no mere intel- 
lectual perception of an idea, but the heart-knowledge 
that God bestows by His special revelation to the soul, 
the direct result of God's walk with the believer. And 
as this is a divine secret, it cannot be explained to 
men. The believer is thus a prophet, and in regard 
to the future as it pertains to him and touches his 
interests, it may be said of him as Amos uses the 
words concerning the official prophets : " Surely the 
Lord God will do nothing, but He revealeth His 
secret unto His servants the prophets." While 
worldly men of science are making their vain and 
conflicting guesses about the future, and after the 
most prodigious efforts land in a doubt, the believer 
is hearing from the Spirit of God the blessed story of 
his own destination and the sad announcement of 
Sodom's fall. The believer has not to guess or grope, 
for he walks in God's light, where the speculations of 
philosophy lose their value. Everything before the 
believer is bright. God walks with him and points 
out to him not only the burning Sodom, but the 
eternal city of holiness to which his own past leads. 

3. The third reflection is, that God in His walk 
with the believer makes him a co-operator with Him 
in His administration of His government. This is 
the exaltation given the humblest child of God. " Do 



212 GOD'S WALK WITH US. 

ye not know," says the apostle, " that the saints shall 
judge the world ? . . . . Know ye not that we shall 
judge angels % " So Daniel says that judgment was 
given to the saints of the Most High. And John 
says: "To him that overcometh will I give power 
over the nations." And David represents God's 
people as assessors with Him in judging the world, 
to execute vengeance upon the heathen and punish- 
ments upon the people, to bind their kings with 
chains and their nobles with fetters of iron, to exe- 
cute upon them the judgment written. This honor 
(says he) have all His saints. And when our Saviour 
tells His Church that whatever they shall bind on 
earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever they 
shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven, He is 
not giving an arbitrary power to be wielded by the 
will of man, but He is stating the great principle of 
the believer's co-operation with God, the arm and 
action of which is prayer. God associates His chil- 
dren with Him in the government of the world by 
giving them a constant access to Himself in bold and 
earnest prayer. Abraham's prayer to God was part 
of the causation by which Lot escaped from the 
doomed city. So all the blessings of God's Church 
are the answers to prayer. God will be inquired of 
for all, and He wishes us to understand our high priv- 
ilege, and use it continually. God would have us 
always praying, for the whole progress of His Church, 
nay, the whole progress of events, is but the issue of 
answered prayer. He has committed this high min- 
istry to us, for our faith to lay hold of the power, and 



GOD'S WALK WITH US. 213 

so achieve what God's love is ready to grant, but in 
which He has seen fit to use our agency and so exalt 
us in Jesus Christ to His side. Abraham's title, 
"friend of God," is told us by the apostle James 
to have been founded on his faith. He accepted the 
high privileges God offered. And so that phrase 
does not merely represent one whom God loved, for 
this relation is best shown in the epithet, " child of 
God," which is also used in the Old as in the New 
Testament, but the phrase, " friend of God," repre- 
sents one with whom God takes counsel, as one may 
with a friend, but does not with a child. It is this 
consulting with the believer that is thus taught in our 
text, and the believer's prayer is the mode in which 
he answers this condescending invitation of the Lord. 
Such, then, are the blessed thoughts which are sug- 
gested by this question of God, " Shall I hide from 
Abraham that thing which I do?" that God walks 
with the believer, taking him into His confidence, 
revealing to him the otherwise unknown future, and 
accepting him as a co-worker in the administration of 
His divine government. Does not the contempla- 
tion of this exaltation quicken our zeal and our faith ? 
Does it not lessen our care for mere earthly things ? 
Does it not fill our souls with satisfaction amid the 
world's evils ? Eemember that Abraham was a type 
and example of every believer. All his spiritual 
exaltation he had by faith — the same faith which you 
and I have. He was no exceptional case, save as faith 
made him exceptional. God offers to every believer 
the same privileges and enjoyments. There is no 



214 GOD'S WALK WITH US. 

reason, out of ourselves, why each one of us should 
not be styled with equal emphasis "the friend of 
God." Our God walks daily with us and offers us all 
the treasures of His confidence. It is only for us to 
throw away the worldliness that weakens our faith 
and obscures our view of God. 



TRANSFIGURATION. 

Matthew xvii. 1-13. 

It was shortly after our Lord had foretold to His 
disciples His own death and their trials that He gave 
to three of them — Peter, James, and John — the most 
vivid presentation of His glory. He took these three 
up into a high mountain for a season of prayer. This 
purpose is expressly mentioned by Luke. While 
Jesus was praying, His countenance assumed a daz- 
zling sunlight radiance, such as Moses' countenance 
had assumed when he came down from communion 
with God, and the people could not gaze upon it. 
The garments of Jesus also became brilliant with a 
material glory. There appeared at the same time two 
men talking with Jesus concerning the departure from 
earth which He was about, in a few months, to make 
at Jerusalem. These two men, standing by Jesus 
and talking with Him (not elevated in the air, as 
Raphael has made them in his famous picture), were 
enveloped in the glory which came from the person 
of Christ. The three disciples had fallen asleep (for 
the event doubtless occurred in the night), and awoke 
to behold this wonderful sight. They were filled with 
amazement and alarm; but Peter recovered himself 

(215) 



216 TRANSFIGURATION. 

enough to say, " Master, it is good for us to be here, 
and let us make three tents — one for Thee, and one 
for Moses, and one for Elijah "; for the disciples rec- 
ognized, either by some conventional style of dress or 
by a divine suggestion, that the two men were the 
great Lawgiver and the great Reformer of Israel. 
Peter's temperament led him to make some remark, 
but he did not know what better to say. While Pe- 
ter was speaking a shining cloud overshadowed them, 
and a voice came from the cloud, " This is my beloved 
Son, in whom I am well pleased ; hear Him." It was 
the same voice and words that came to Jesus at His 
baptism (Matt. iii. 17), with the addition of " hear 
Him." The disciples fell on their faces, dazed by the 
transcendent vision, when Jesus came and touched 
them, saying, "Arise, and fear not." At His word 
they arose, and found only Jesus with them in His 
accustomed way. 

This scene of the transfiguration was — 
1. A testimony to the Deity of Jesus. It is true 
that Moses' face shone like the sun when he came 
down from Sinai, and it is true that Elijah went up 
to heaven in a chariot of material glory, but here we 
have one to whom Moses and Elijah paid homage. It 
is very probable that this high mountain apart was 
itself Sinai, and that there, where Moses and Elijah 
and Jesus had each fasted forty days, this interview 
of Moses and Elias and Jesus occurred. Moses and 
Elijah had been distinguished among men as the ex- 
ponents of God's will, and had stood aloof from the 
race in a peculiar manner, giving wonderful dignity 



TRANSFIGURATION. 217 

to their mission. But Jesus needed not this separa- 
tion above the rest. He mingled with men intimate- 
ly, His own perfect character maintaining His dignity 
without any accessory of form. To this Jesus came 
both Moses and Elijah as to their chief, and spoke 
with Him on the mount of transfiguration regarding 
the great central fact of man's redemption, the death 
of Jesus at Jerusalem as the Lamb of God taking 
away the sin of the world. The heavenly glory now 
was on Jesus' person, and from Him it enveloped 
Moses and Elijah, and the voice from the cloud marked 
Him out as the beloved Son of God, the manifested 
God to man, to whom all were called to hearken as 
the source of truth. He who was before the carpen- 
ter of Nazareth, and afterward the crucified victim 
on the cross of a malefactor, is now, between the two 
epochs, crowned with glory, and witnessed to by 
heaven, as Lord of all. This divine testimony was 
echoed (as it were) by the human testimony of Mary 
of Bethany afterward, when, close by wicked and in- 
imical Jerusalem, she broke the alabaster cruse of pre- 
cious ointment and poured the contents on her Lord's 
head, her faith bearing strong witness to the Lord of 
salvation amid the earthly gloom that surrounded 
Him. 

2. But this scene on the mount of transfiguration 
was also an encouragement to the three apostles. They 
had before them a long and arduous career, to carry 
the tidings of a crucified but risen Saviour to the 
ends of the earth, and to meet at every step Jewish 
bigotry, Greek contempt, and the carnal heart's ma- 



218 TRANSFIGURATION. 

lignity. They were to be scourged and imprisoned, 
and to end their career (with the exception of John) 
in martyrdom. They were to endure every form of 
persecution and to practice every form of self-denial ; 
and, above all, they were to resist the natural weak- 
ness of their own hearts in all this life-work for Christ 
and His truth. Their Lord would fortify them for 
their great charge. He would impress upon their 
minds and memories the lesson of their union with 
the divine glory and the Pedeemer's triumph, as be- 
tokened by the scene on the mount. We know how 
this impression served the apostle Peter. He refers 
to it in his epistle : " We were eye-witnesses of His 
majesty, for He received from God the Father honor 
and glory, when there came such a voice to Him from 
the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in 
whom I am well pleased. And this voice which 
came from heaven we heard, when we were with Him 
in the holy mount." (We may say in passing that 
this phrase, "holy mount," seems to mark Sinai as 
the scene of the transfiguration.) We can readily im- 
agine how, in the long years afterward, Peter and John 
must have been sustained amid hardships and the 
world's scorn by this memory, which was also a prom- 
ise of glory. James, the third of the privileged apos- 
tles, had not so long a career as the other two. He 
was the first of the apostles to win the crown of mar- 
tyrdom, and yet he had fifteen years of service in 
apostolic labors after the ascension of his Lord. 

3. But, still again, this scene on the mount of trans- 
figuration was an encouragement to our Lord him- 



TRANSFIGURATION. 219 

self. We must ever keep in mind that our Lord, in 
His humiliation, did not rely upon His divine power 
or knowledge, but so completely emptied Himself and 
limited Himself with human limitations that His re- 
sources were just such as you and I have in our earths 
ly pilgrimage. He had the Word and the Spirit of 
God for His support. He used prayer and faith as 
His shield against trial and temptation. His prayers 
were heard and answered not because of His God- 
hood, but because of His pious manhood. He often 
felt the pressure of the evil around Him. He sighed 
and groaned in spirit, He was straitened in His soul, 
He wept, He was moved with indignation, He prayed 
with strong crying and tears, He experienced intense 
agony of heart, and therefore anything to cheer and 
comfort Him was as acceptable as it would be to us. 
The glorious scene on the mount was thus a testimony 
to Jesus himself of His Father's love and care, an as- 
surance that beyond His dark destiny in bearing the 
sins of men was the joy unutterable of the heavenly 
reward. Like the testimony at the baptism, it was 
both approval and promise, to be a balm to His soul 
in the midst of the future suffering. Though then a 
suffering man, suffering as no other man ever suffered, 
because the weight of a world's sin was upon Him, 
yet in the midst of that agony He could repeat to 
Himself those words from heaven, "This is my be- 
loved Son, in whom I am well pleased," and recall 
the glory which shone around Him when they were 
uttered. Perhaps one of the struggles in His agony 
was to realize this testimony of the past while tempted 



220 TRANSFIGURATION. 

with the thought of His God forsaking Him. How- 
ever this may be, it must have yielded some cheering 
fruit for the Blessed One, even when on the cross. 

4. Still again, the scene on the mount of transfig- 
uration was a token and symbol of the joy that awaits 
the disciple. God does not tantalize. He does not 
give us a joy in order to take it away from us. He 
does not show us a glory and then shut us out from 
it. That would be the part of a hateful and hating 
being, but God is Love. The glory He gives His 
disciple is to be His disciple's forever, although he 
may lose sight of it for a while during this earthly 
training process. The three disciples were treated to 
a momentary experience of what would be their eter- 
nal portion. As far as flesh could grasp the heavenly 
idea, they grasped it then. They were with Christ 
in glory. They were above earthly considerations of 
every kind. It was but a moment, but it was a mo- 
ment of marvellous meaning. The two who appeared 
with Jesus were men who had for long ages enjoyed 
the glories of heaven. Moses and Elijah had received 
the "recompense of reward," and knew their Lord in 
His humiliation, and beheld Him with that mingled 
awe and affection which His mighty work of conde- 
scension evoked. Heaven is not far from earth ; 
Moses and Elijah are close by. And our dear ones 
who have left us are not far away because we cannot 
see them. They form part of the cloud of witnesses 
about us, and take interest in all that concerns our 
Lord's kingdom and people on the earth, as did Moses 
and Elijah. They are enjoying the glory of which 



TRANSFIGURATION. 221 

that on the mount was a token, and of the nearness 
of which to us also it was a token. Those three dis- 
ciples on the mount saw before them, beyond the 
trials of earth, the complete realization of the glory 
of which a glimpse was then given them. Like their 
Master, for the joy set before them they endured their 
crosses, and they trod their often thorny road in the 
radiance that shone upon it from the Master's heaven. 
Such, then, we find to be the meaning of the wonder- 
ful scene on the mount. It was a testimony to the 
Deity of Jesus, an encouragement to the three apos- 
tles, an encouragement to our Lord himself, and a 
token and symbol of the joy of heaven. 

Two important thoughts will take up the remainder 
of our meditation. 

I. The contemplation of heaven in an elevated 
communion with Christ is a wholesome cheer and 
comfort to the trice disciple. I do not mean any sen- 
timental dreaming of golden streets and pearly gates, 
fanciful pictures which any one can paint to the im- 
agination, and in which he would not be in advance 
of the Indian picturing his happy hunting-grounds. 
Such material notions are readily entertained by any 
worldly mind. They do not betoken any heavenly- 
mindedness at all. They are mere poetry, evanescent 
and worthless. They have no root in faith and God's 
Word, but are simply creatures of the imagination. 

The only true contemplation of heaven is where 
Christ is the central figure, as He was to the three 
disciples on the mount, where the glory comes from 
Rim, and embraces us because it is from Him ; where, 



222 TRANSFIGURATION. 

as His disciples, we enjoy the view and see our part in 
Him. Paul expressed the true idea of heaven when 
he said, " absent from the body and present with the 
Lord" and, again, "to depart and he with Christ, 
which is far better." It is this beholding of Jesus 
as the source of heaven's glory that is found in every 
true contemplation of heaven. It is, as we have said, 
an elevated communion with Christ, a going up on 
the mountain with Him. Without Him there could 
be none of it. Too often Christians dwell upon 
heaven in their thoughts as a reunion with their dear 
ones who have gone before. Undoubtedly it will be 
such, but it is not that contemplation of heaven which 
strengthens the soul. The strength comes from be- 
holding Christ as the centre of glory. Without that 
vision, the other is apt to degenerate into mere senti- 
mentality or an earthly longing. It is human affec- 
tion, and not godliness, which is exercising itself. 
That the reunion with beloved ones should make part 
of the picture is true, as Moses and Elijah formed part 
of the company on the mount, but that should be a 
subordinate part ; while one dearer than all else 
should be the main attraction of the heavenly scene. 
Where such a contemplation of heaven is had, the 
soul, by no earthly processes, and by no process un- 
derstood by earthly minds or even analyzed by itself, 
is raised to a position of power over difficulties and 
trials that likens it to Christ himself. It is able to 
do and to bear as from an omnipotent impulse. It 
loses care and perplexity, and finds the path easy and 
peaceful. It knows with peculiar emphasis the pres- 



TRANSFIGURATION. 223 

ence of the Lord, so that it cannot be moved. It is a 
wonder to itself in this strength, which (it well knows) 
comes not to it from nature, but is wholly unlike its 
natural character. It sees its own weakness and the 
divine strength together, and exclaims in triumph, 
" When I am weak, then am I strong." 

II. The other important thought deduced from our 
subject is this, that only some disciples have this cheer- 
ing view of the glory. Peter, James, and John were 
the only ones of the twelve who were led up into the 
mount of transfiguration. These same three had been 
selected to behold the raising of Jairus' daughter from 
the dead, and these three alone were permitted to be- 
hold our Lord's agony in the garden. There was a 
reason in this. Our Lord was not arbitrary in His 
conduct. Peter, with all his errors of impulse, was a 
devoted disciple. His weaknesses did not vitiate the 
sincerity of his heart. He was naturally and properly 
the leader of the apostolic band. John was full of 
love to Jesus. He seemed to have no other thought 
in his mind than the interests of his Master, and his 
Master returned his ardent affection with demonstra- 
tive regard. Of James we do not know so much. 
We know, however, that he was the first of the apos- 
tles to lay down his life for the Lord, and we may 
well believe that he had much of the spirit of his 
brother John. These three stood easily above all the 
others in their whole-souled devotion. They dwelt in 
the secret place of the Most High, and so had peculiar 
spiritual honors conferred upon them. It is so always 
in Christ's Church. There are some who, because of 



224: TR ANSFIG UR ATION. 

their peculiar attachment to their Lord, are favored 
with remarkable exhibitions of His glory. The rest 
are blest in their lives ; they are true disciples, they 
find comfort in the truth, but they lack the glory ele- 
ment of experience. They never go up into the mount 
of transfiguration. They may be, like Matthew and 
Thomas and Bartholomew, excellent disciples and 
most useful to the Church and true to their high 
calling, but they are not, like Peter and James and 
John, brought into the inner circle of our Lord's 
society, where the dazzling glory shines. These fa- 
vored disciples (as we have said) are not favored arbi- 
trarily. They are favored because of their devotion. 
They do not wish to be ordinary Christians. They 
do not strike hands with the world. They do not soil 
their garments in low society. They do not make 
earthly ends prominent in their minds, whether riches 
or honors or pleasures. They love the Word, and 
ponder diligently upon it. They love prayer, and 
their lives are lives of prayer. They feel the pres- 
ence of Jesus at every step of their journey. They 
do not have to make a struggle to do duty for Jesus, 
for they love such duty, and take to it as their very 
life. They have no questions of casuistry to settle, 
such as, " Can't I do this or that, and yet be a Chris- 
tian ? " They live too far away from the border-land 
to be affected by such questions. They walk with 
God. They love to ask God's will in every event of 
life. They take every event as the action of His 
love. They know that His mercy never forsakes 
them. Now to such, as to Paul, God shows special 



TRANSFIGURATION. 225 

favor in catching them up to the third heaven, to 
Paradise, and showing them things which it is unlaw- 
ful and impossible to utter. Such views are not con- 
tinued ; the j are not frequent. Continuance or fre- 
quency would not suit our present state. They would 
beget discontent with earth or spiritual pride. And 
hence, when they are given, it is necessary for some 
thorn in the flesh to be added, lest the saint be exalted 
above measure. We are still in the flesh, and hence 
these rapturous seasons of exalted communion will not 
do for the most devoted disciples, except occasionally 
and with a safeguard. But still they are given, and 
they are unspeakable joys, and full of glory to the soul. 
Brethren, shall we not try to enjoy them ? Shall 
we not try to be like Peter and James and John as 
compared with the other apostles, so closely attached 
to our Lord that He will show us His glory from 
time to time as our comfort and stimulus in our whole 
life? Shall we be satisfied with a creeping, crawling 
piety when we may have a soaring faith ? Shall we 
let the ephemeral things, like money or social position 
or worldly amusements, keep us from this open door 
of Paradise? Our reason says no. But what says 
our heart f Where is that heart to-day? Is it with 
Jesus ? Or is it with our merchandise, our lots, our 
stocks, our dresses, our parties, our gossip, our frolics, 
our fading follies? If we are Christ's, let us be 
Christ's indeed, with no half-way halting piety that 
yields a very speckled fruit, but with a devotion that 
lifts us above the world, and whose fruit is pure and 
rich, and abundant in peace and holy joy. 



RESURRECTION. 

Acts xxvi. 23: "That He should be the first that 

SHOULD RISE FROM THE DEAD." 

No one wishes to be unclothed upon with a body, 
as the apostle says in 2 Cor. v. 4. We shrink from 
being mere spirit. Furthermore, there is an instinctive 
notion in men that in some way they will have a 
bodily life hereafter. The Indian pictures a hunting- 
ground and himself exercising his bodily strength and 
agility on it. The Mohammedan hopes for physical 
pleasures. The Greek saw the worthies of his race 
sitting down to eat and drink with the gods. The 
Egyptians preserved most carefully the bodies of their 
dead for revivification when the gods should appoint. 
It is a mistake to suppose that the resurrection of the 
body is taught only by revelation, and that, too, of 
the New Testament. The perpetual duration of man, 
and that in some bodily form, is a doctrine as in- 
stinctive in the race as is the doctrine of the existence 
of a God. Revelation has eclaircised this truth ; has 
taken away the doubts that clung to it in the human 
mind — doubts that principally came from the elabo- 
rations of philosophy — and has expounded some of its 
details. Life and immortality are made luminous in 
(226) 



RESURRECTION. 227 

the Gospel. Our instincts are confirmed by revela- 
tion and precious promises, and, above all, by the 
resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Just as He 
rose bodily from the tomb, and as He went bodily to 
heaven, whence He will again come in the body, so all 
His saints shall rise in the body and dwell with Him 
in the body. 

Two questions readily arise when the Scriptures 
present this view of the matter to us : First, how are 
we between our body's dissolution and its resurrection ? 
and, secondly, what is to be the style of the future 
body ? In regard to the former (how are we between 
our body's dissolution and its resurrection ?) we may 
answer negatively that we are not to be then uncon- 
scious. The expressions which have led to that notion 
on the part of many are the expressions in Scripture 
regarding the sleep of death. " Our friend Lazarus 
sleepeth," says our Lord, " and I go to wake him out 
of sleep." So Paul says of the Corinthians who had 
died, " Many sleep." So Daniel says, " Many of them 
that sleep in the dust shall awake." It is not strange 
that from this frequent reference to the dead as asleep 
the notion of their unconsciousness should be adopted, 
but it is a hasty and unwarranted conclusion. There 
are other Scriptures which must be heard before we 
can come to a right conclusion. Our Lord said to 
the penitent robber, " This day shalt thou be with me 
in Paradise." So, on the very day when his tortured 
body was cast away lifeless in some place of disgrace, 
he, the penitent himself, was rejoicing in the Paradise 
of God in the company of Christ. Again, we read the 



228 RESURRECTION. 

account of Lazarus dying, who immediately upon his 
death was carried by angels to Abraham's bosom — 
that is, to the heavenly banquet, to sit there next to 
Abraham, It is true that this story of Lazarus is a 
parable, but its doctrine is true, although the persons 
are imaginary and the language figurative. Lazarus 
is represented as comforted in the other world in the 
society of the blessed ; not after the future resurrection 
day, but while the rich man's brothers were still upon 
the earth. Still again, the inspired page declares that 
the saints who have departed this life are witnesses of 
those who are still in the Christian race on earth, 
which they could not be if they were unconscious. 
Their presence is an argument for our more careful 
and consistent course. Moses was seen by Peter, 
James, and John on the mount of transfiguration, and 
yet his body was buried fourteen centuries before and 
its resurrection day has not yet come. Not to mul- 
tiply proofs, I add but one more, and that is the 
declaration of Paul that to be absent from the body is 
to be present with the Lord, which certainly cannot 
be a condition of unconsciousness, to which condition 
the apostle longed to depart because it was to he with 
Christ. You see that we are to interpret the sleep of 
death in perfect harmony with these abundant Scrip- 
tures which show the continued conscious life of the 
saint in glory. And the interpretation is not difficult. 
The sleep is predicated only of the body. The body 
sleeps. The soul cannot sleep. While it is in the 
body, the body may clog its action and thus produce 
what we call unconsciousness, but that is a bodily 



RESURRECTION. 229 

effect; when this earthly body with its gross mat- 
ter and its varied elements of disease is laid aside, 
there is nothing to clog the soul, nothing to make it 
unconscious. Its own nature triumphs, and it cannot 
sleep. As we have known our friends by the bodily 
form, it is natural, when we follow their bodies to the 
grave, to think we are following them, and that they 
sleep in the grave ; but though this language is natural 
and quite proper, it is like saying, " the sun rises," and 
" the sun sets," because it is phenomenally so, but really 
it is not so at all. We do not go down into the grave, 
although we may use such language with old Jacob, 
out of regard for our bodies which will so go down. 

As Scripture clearly shows that we shall not be un- 
conscious between the body's dissolution and its resur- 
rection, so a common-sense philosophy would also 
argue. Why should we be unconscious? Is con- 
sciousness situated in the body % Is not consciousness 
an act or condition of the immaterial life, the spirit 
of man ? If we should support a theory of uncon- 
sciousness after death, we should have to invent some 
new force or substance outside of the spirit which 
should join it and hinder its activity. Surely there is 
nothing in spirit to check spirit. Therefore, if we 
are conscious now, much more shall we be conscious 
when this gross body is dissolved. Furthermore, to 
make consciousness dependent upon the body is to 
degrade man, and is contrary to the analogy of the 
angels. 

A second point we may be sure of regarding our 
condition between death and the resurrection is this, 



230 RESURRECTION. 

that we who are in Christ shall be happy. The cases 
already referred to, of Lazarus and the penitent rob- 
ber, sufficiently prove this. To be in the society of 
Abraham, and with Christ, and in Paradise — surely 
this must be happiness. If not, where are we to seek 
it ? Any notion of a purgatory, or a limbo of re- 
straint and confinement, a hades jointly occupied by 
good and bad temporarily, is utterly foreign to the 
Scriptures. That Paradise, named from the joyful 
home of man in his innocence, should be a gloomy 
place, a place of sighs and tears, or a place of mere 
waiting for good, when applied to the other world, is 
so absurd that it is marvellous how any Christians have 
for a moment entertained the notion. Besides the 
accounts of Lazarus and the penitent robber, we may 
again refer to Paul's desire to depart and be with 
Christ, and his declaration that to be absent from the 
body was to be present with the Lord, as showing the 
immediate transit of the believing soul to glory. If 
being with our Lord Christ is not heaven, what is % 
In Christ we have our spiritual life, and the nearer 
we come to Him the stronger is that life with its 
holiness and happiness. When we shall see Him as 
He is, that happiness shall be consummated, and this 
is what the apostle saw ready for him at the dissolu- 
tion of his body. He spoke in the same direction 
when he said, " We know that if our earthly house of 
this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of 
God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the 
heavens." He shows that leaving one mode of life is 
entering the other; that the divine and eternal 



RESURRECTION. 231 

building welcomes us as soon as we quit this earthly 
tent. 

2. This brings us to our second question : " What 
is to be the style of our future body ? " The fifteenth 
chapter of First Corinthians tells us that it will not be 
like our present body. It will be a spiritual body, while 
we now have a natural or physical body. It will be as 
unlike our present body as the stalk of wheat is unlike 
the grain which was sown, and from which the stalk 
has grown. It may or may not have our general like- 
ness. We might surmise that it would, from the fact 
of Moses and Samuel appearing and being recog- 
nized after their death in whatever way they may 
have assumed form without a resurrection-body. We 
might argue that if they then appeared with a like- 
ness to their earthly bodies, they would certainly have 
this likeness in the resurrection-body. And yet 
these cases may be considered doubtful, for some will 
say that Samuel never appeared, but only a phantom 
permitted of G-od to personate Samuel, and that 
Moses could not have been recognized by James and 
John and Peter because they had never seen him in 
the flesh. The simile of the grain, moreover, points the 
other way. The spiritual body will be connected with 
the natural body, but it will be a very different thing. 
Do we shrink from that fact % What ! would we not be 
glad to have a body warranted against disease, pain, and 
fatigue ? And yet such a body must be totally differ- 
ent from our present body. We undergo changes 
while here upon earth that make us wholly unlike 
what we were a few years ago. Who can see any 



232 RESURRECTION. 

likeness between you and your portrait as it was 
taken forty, or even twenty, years ago ? We know 
that every atom of our flesh is changed, and if we 
could follow our atoms of flesh, we should find some 
of those atoms, which twenty years ago we took such 
care of as part of our self, are now in some other 
person, and in a tree of the forest, and perhaps in a 
crawling worm. There is a constant flux, a flowing 
forth and a flowing in, with regard to our physical 
structure, and we need not therefore grieve at the 
idea of parting with these bodies. They do not be- 
long to us any more than the passing wind. They 
come and go, and are in a state of coming and going 
every day. 

The new body will be free from the antagonisms 
which our present body offers to the soul. Our 
present body is a provocative to sin by its diseases 
and its strange connection with our impulses and 
desires. The use of the word " body " in connection 
with sin is very conspicuous in the apostle, who speaks 
of the redemption of the body as the last great act of 
Christ's atonement. The spiritual body is to be free 
then from all this sinful readiness and adaptiveness of 
the natural body. It will be adjusted to all the pure 
wants of the enfranchised spirit, just as the natural 
body is adjusted to all the wants of the natural man. 
Every pure and holy thought will receive a help from 
that new body, as now it receives a hindrance from 
the body of flesh. Instead of antagonisms within 
ourselves, our whole nature in its new form will be 
homogeneous and accordant, pure spirit in a spiritual 



RESURRECTION. 233 

body. We cannot, of course, imagine a spiritual 
body, but we can believe it on the strength of God's 
revelation. No one has seen a spiritual body. Our 
gross senses could not perceive it, if present. The 
body our Lord had on earth after His resurrection 
and before His ascension was a fleshly body, as He Him- 
self told His disciples. Its change into a spiritual 
body did not occur until He was removed from their 
sight. Earthly intercourse must be with earthly 
bodies, heavenly intercourse with heavenly bodies. 
Our Lord's resurrection was the first-fruits and ex- 
ample of all resurrection not in the style of body 
raised, but in the triumph of the body over death. 
When we arise from the dead, we arise to be in 
heaven. When He arose from the dead, He arose to 
be forty days on earth. In this regard, therefore, there 
is no likeness between Christ and us. Christ in 
heaven has the same kind of body (" the body of His 
glory," as Paul calls it) which we shall have when our 
bodies arise. It is His divine power that shall fash- 
ion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be 
conformed to the body of His glory (Phil. iii. 21). 
Now this change does not mar identity, any more 
than the earthly changes our bodies have undergone 
have marred our identity. Identity lies not in par- 
ticles of matter, nor even in form, but in a spiritual 
principle which may exhibit itself in any of many 
forms. The great brotherhood of saints in heaven 
will certainly not be destitute of the identifications 
which they enjoy here on earth. 

Our Lord's resurrection is the pledge to us that in 



234 RESURRECTION. 

body as well as soul we shall triumph over death 
(nay, we have triumphed), and shall forever live in soul 
and body union. Here, then, comes in a very natural 
question : If we are to have a united soul and body 
life hereafter, and our present bodies decay in the 
grave, and do not rise as spiritual bodies till the resur- 
rection-day, and if, besides, as we have seen, we shall 
be conscious in heaven while our bodies sleep in the 
grave, in what sort of a disembodied, exceptional con- 
dition shall we be for the interval between the body's 
death and the resurrection? I think the apostle 
clearly indicates that we are to be clothed upon with 
our house which is from heaven the moment this 
earthly tabernacle is dissolved. " For we know that 
if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, 
we have a building of God, a house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, 
earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house 
which is from heaven. (If so be that being clothed, 
we shall not be found naked.) For we that are in 
this tabernacle do groan, being burdened ; not for that 
we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mor- 
tality might be swallowed up of life " (2 Cor. v. 1-4). 
Surely in this passage he shows that we are not to be 
left unclothed. The naked soul is not to dwell in 
heaven waiting in this undesirable condition for the 
union with the body. But at once the new body in 
its germ is provided, which at the resurrection will 
receive its complete proportions. In such a body 
Moses appeared to the higher sense of the rapt 
apostles, and not as a disembodied spirit. In such a 



RESURRECTION. 235 

body was Lazarus carried by the angels to Abraham's 
bosom. Whether that body is already formed in the 
believer by the Holy Spirit, and escapes from the 
earthly tabernacle on its decay, we cannot tell ; but 
there is nothing in Scripture to forbid this supposition. 
If it be so, then the life in Christ is one uniform and 
consistent life from the beginning, a soul and body 
life within the decaying body of sin, not checked at 
that body's death, but advancing still in the heavenly 
sphere until the renewed elements of the mortal 
body complete its growth and perfection. What 
wonderful emphasis have our Lord's words in this 
view, "He that liveth and believeth on me shall 
never die." 

Such, then, brethren, is the future which our Lord 
Jesus has pledged to lis by being Himself the first to 
rise from the dead. He partook of our nature that 
we should partake of His experience as glorified man. 
The way He trod we are to tread. Heaven opens to 
us because it opened to Him. His glorified body 
necessitates our glorified body. He is in us forever. 
We are in Him forever. Nothing can separate us, 
not even death. He lives. Therefore we live. We 
cannot die. 

You see why the apostles dwelt so much on Christ's 
resurrection. You see why they so constantly referred 
the Christians to their own resurrection. It was the 
non-dying, ever-living thought, which so nerved the 
soul to boldness of action and patience in suffering, 
and which made the apostolic age such a marvel for 
the progress of the truth through the world. We 



236 RESURRECTION. 

must revive this apostolic theme. We must think 
more of our risen Christ as our elder brother in heaven, 
and of our own brotherhood to Him, never to be sus- 
pended for a moment, but to continue and expand 
until we are like Him, and see Him as He is. With 
this divine thought and prospect we shall think less 
of earthly pleasures or earthly cares, and more copi- 
ously impart the elements of the heavenly life to 
sanctify and bless this earthly life of ours. 



OBEDIENCE TO GOD'S LAW.* 

Romans viii. 4: "That the righteousness of the law 

MIGHT BE FULFILLED IN US, WHO WALK NOT AFTER THE 
FLESH, BUT AFTER THE SPIRIT." 

The law of God is never a pleasant subject of 
thought to an unregenerate man. To him it means 
antagonism and penalty. He sees it with his con- 
science, not with his heart. In the same way he sees 
God himself. There is no harmony between him 
and God. Why is this? Is it anything else than 
that God is holy and he is unholy ? Is not this repul- 
sion between him and God a satisfactory proof of his 
unholiness ? Were he holy, would not his heart be 
drawn to God and his delight be to do His holy will ? 
Ought not every unconverted soul to be alarmed at 
this dissonance between himself and God ? Is it not 
a constant, pressing argument of God to him to seek 
for a harmony where certainly a harmony should be ? 
If the unregenerate man should turn and be recon- 
ciled to God, the law of God, now so unpleasant to 
his mind, would wear a very different aspect. What 

* This sermon was preached by Dr. Crosby in his own pulpit 
Sunday morning, March 15, 1891, the last day of his public min- 
istry. 

(237) 



238 OBEDIENCE TO GOD'S LAW. 

is that law ? Is it not simply the expression of His 
holiness in His dealings with man ? The law of God 
is not a tyrannical imposition nor a wanton exercise 
of power. It is a provision for man's highest happi- 
ness. " Do this and live " is its cry. It is the incul- 
cation of love, and in the Decalogue it takes largely 
the form of prohibition simply because of man's sin, 
which requires this negative treatment ; but our Lord 
gave the marrow of God's law when He explained it 
in two sentences : " Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with 
all thy mind," and " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself." Ought there to be anything repulsive in 
that ? That which repels the sinner is the conscious- 
ness of his disobedience and his instinctive dread of 
consequences. He feels (though he may not analyze 
the feeling) that to be out of harmony with such a 
divine law is to be in harmony with evil. He knows 
that the converse of " Do this and live" is, " Do not 
do it and die" and he has a vague knowledge of that 
sentence of death resting upon him. His conscience 
may be dulled, but it cannot be altogether destroyed, 
and it is the trouble there which makes him hostile to 
God's law, so that he will either openly revolt from 
it, or, if he fear to do this, he will think to appease it 
by a conscience-religion, in which the heart has no 
share. 

It is not strange that man should hate God's law. 
His selfish desires run in the opposite direction from 
that of love, which is the essence of God's law. 
There is a great talk about love among sentimental 



OBEDIENCE TO GOD'S LAW. 239 

unbelievers, but it is like the charity of a charity-ball, 
where the dancers are attracted by the ball, but not 
by the charity. So this love that the godless world 
prates about is a very pretty sentiment, but never has 
any power to alter the selfish life. It's a love that 
doesn't cost anything and that doesn't interfere with 
self-indulgence. These unbelievers, who are very 
plenty in literature, are wont with an air of self- 
satisfaction, while sneering at Christians, to compli- 
ment the Lord Jesus in a patronizing way and to say 
that the Sermon on the Mount is all the religion they 
want. They seem to forget that the Lord Jesus in 
that sermon speaks of the Gehenna of fire and of 
those men that go thither ; that in that sermon He 
commands a heart-service of God, and that He con- 
cludes it by pronouncing a fearful destruction on such 
as hear the sayings of that Sermon on the Mount and 
do them not. God's law is not to be obeyed by senti- 
ment and by the poetic approbation of those that go 
on in sin. Unless the heart of sinful man is thor- 
oughly changed, there can be no obedience to God's 
law of love. And here we reach the expression of 
our text, " That the righteousness of the law might be 
fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after 
the Spirit." 

Now note from this Scripture that men can obey 
God's law, and who are the men that can. 

I. Men can obey GooVs law. God's law, as given 
to sinful man, was not intended to be a dead letter, 
nor was it intended by a loving God to increase man's 
condemnation, although that will be the result, if it is 



240 OBEDIENCE TO GOD'S LAW. 

despised. God's law is a law of holiness, and man is 
to obey it by becoming holy, according to the epitome 
of that law, " Be ye holy even as I am holy." It is 
very true that man cannot in his natural powers obey 
that law. His fallen nature is slave to sin and obeys 
only the law of sin. His heart is enmity against 
God, however he may polish his outward life with 
worldly refinements and culture. But that holy God 
who has promulgated His holy law to man has with 
it promulgated His glorious Gospel, which offers to 
renew the natural heart so that it may obey God's 
holy law. The Gospel comes in the service of the law 
and to the aid of man. It is the glad tidings that 
there is One who is ready to be our surety, to identify 
Himself with us, to give us His Holy Spirit, and so 
to put us in full connection with a holy God. This 
great Redeemer is the King of kings who stoops from 
heaven to unite Himself with us, and so rescue us 
from our utterly lost condition. Is the Gospel, then, 
to be considered as antagonistic to the law, as many 
superficially consider it? By no means. The law 
and the Gospel are all of one and seek the same end. 
Some are led astray by the apparent antagonism of 
law and Gospel in the epistles of Paul. But in those 
epistles Paul is treating of the law as a justifying 
power, in which it fails through the weakness of the 
flesh. As a justifying power the law is good for 
nothing, because the natural heart cannot obey it, but 
the Gospel comes and justifies the man. In this view 
the law and the Gospel are contrasted by Paul. But 
the same apostle shows that law and Gospel are all 



OBEDIENCE TO GOD'S LAW. 241 

one in their perfection. The law is holy, just, and 
good, he says, and in our very text he shows that the 
righteousness of the law is to be fulfilled in us. 

There is a great deal of foolish language used, through 
failure to understand the apostle, and we hear people 
say, " I don't believe in the law — /believe in the Gos- 
pel," and then they carry this folly so far as to ignore the 
Old Testament as if it were a book no longer of any 
value, but only meant for the Jews before Christ. Many 
superficial minds say, "Oh! I never read the Old 
Testament — the New Testament is what is meant for 
the Christian Church," as if the Old Testament was 
of different doctrine from the New. The Bible is 
one. The Old Testament is a Gospel Testament. It 
teaches the same doctrine as the New. It teaches 
that man can be saved from sin only through an 
atoning sacrifice and only by a personal faith wherein 
the soul is renewed. It calls for obedience to God's 
holy law only through this Gospel process. Because 
the Jews perverted the Old Testament and made their 
religion a religion of works, this no more proves the 
Old Testament religion a religion of works than the 
perverted teaching of the Roman Church proves that 
Christianity is a religion of works. Man a sinner, an 
alien from God — an atoning, suffering victim in his 
stead — an approach thus to God and reception of His 
righteousness, — these are the three points of Old 
Testament teaching and the three points of New 
Testament teaching. The whole desire of God from 
the beginning with sinful man has been to bring him 
back to obedience to His holy law. The Gospel is 



242 OBEDIENCE TO GOD'S LAW. 

the means to do this. Does it save from hell ? That 
was not its design. It saves from m, and only so 
does it save from hell, for hell is the full flower of 
sin. God's law demands not only clean hands — that 
is, a fair exterior — but also a pure heart, a cleansing 
at the fountain-head, a purification of motive, aim, 
feeling, taste, and purpose, and men are by the Gospel 
made able to fulfil this demand, which to the natural 
man is an impossibility. Hence those that receive 
the Gospel are called " saints " or " holy ones "; they 
are " the righteous " in God's sight. This does not 
mean that they have no sin left in them, but it does 
mean that they have the divine principle of righteous- 
ness within them, which has taken possession of the 
citadel of their being and has brought them into 
union with God. This leads us to our second point 
from this Scripture. 

II. Who are the men that obey God?s law f " That 
the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, 
who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." 
Here those who fulfil God's holy law are exactly de- 
fined. They are those who walk not after the flesh, 
but after the Spirit. Flesh and spirit are often con- 
trasted in Scripture as referring to the human body 
and human soul, as when Christ excuses His disciples 
and says, " The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is 
weak," and when Peter says "that they might be 
judged according to men in the flesh, but living ac- 
cording to God in the spirit." But there is another 
and more common use of the contrast between flesh 
and spirit in the Scripture. It is where the flesh 



OBEDIENCE TO GODS LAW. 243 

refers to all the natural life of man as closely con- 
nected with his bodily desires and confining his soul 
to low and selfish interests, while the spirit refers to 
the new and higher life of man brought to him by 
the Holy Spirit, who unites with man's spirit and 
revives it in holiness. It is this contrast which our 
Saviour makes when He says to Nicodemus : " That 
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is 
born of the Spirit is spirit/' It is of this that Paul 
speaks when he says : " The flesh lnsteth against the 
Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh "; and when 
again he catalogues the works of the flesh and the 
fruit of the Spirit : " The works of the flesh are mani- 
fest, which are these : adultery, fornication, unclean- 
ness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, vari- 
ance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, 
envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such 
like; .... but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, 
peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meek- 
ness, temperance." Hence they that walk after the 
flesh are they that are guided by their natural im- 
pulses, which work principally in the direction of 
fleshly lasts or low earthly ends. They rise no higher 
than the level of fallen humanity. Tbeir minds may 
be stored with knowledge, they may learn and prac- 
tice many of the graceful courtesies of life, they may 
make a creditable appearance before men, but before 
God they are walkers after the flesh. Their spirits, 
that which would connect them with God, are dead. 
They are wholly disjoined from God. He is not in 
all their thoughts. Their thoughts are on this world, 



244 OBEDIENCE TO GOD'S LAW. 

its gains, its pleasures, its honors and advantages. 
Gross outward sins they may avoid through a cul- 
tured education or through a sense of ultimate gain 
to the worldly life, but the heart is not purified and 
the root of righteousness is not to be found there. 
The morality which many such men boast of is an 
outward varnish over an immoral soul. God, who 
looks not on the outward appearance, but upon the 
heart, judges very differently from man. 

Now, in contrast with these, they that walk after the 
spirit are those whose spirits have been raised from 
the dead by the Spirit of God, and have become their 
guides instead of the flesh. They abandon the leadership 
of the carnal impulses. They see that such leadership 
was a domination of their fallen nature. They have 
now a divine principle within them. Their own 
natures. have not developed into this. There is no 
development or evolution in the whole matter. De- 
velopment would have been only development in vice 
and folly. How, then, have they become "right- 
eous " ? They have received " the blessing from the 
Lord, even righteousness from the God of their sal- 
vation." It is a gift of God, in answer to the cry 
of the sinner. The Lord's promise to fallen man is, 
" Turn ye unto me and I will turn unto you " (Zech. 
i. 3). And when poor, lost man calls to God, the 
Lord gives him His Holy Spirit, which He is more 
ready to give than earthly parents are ready to give 
good gifts to their children. It is then and thus that 
man, who had utterly lost the divine nature, recovers 
it again by the divine gift, and the whole transaction 



OBEDIENCE TO GOD'S LAW. 245 

has been made possible only by the sacrifice of the 
Son of God, which absorbed the penalty for sin and 
enabled God to come near the sinner with His Gospel 
of salvation. God can now be just, maintain His per- 
fect character of holiness, and yet justify him that 
believeth in Jesus, trusting heaven for heaven's right- 
eousness. We see from this how the believer is 
righteous, and yet how his righteousness forbids all 
boasting, because it does not evolve from himself, but 
is the gift of God. He is righteous, because God has 
placed His righteousness in his heart. He is holy, 
because the Holy Spirit has entered into him and wit- 
nesses with his spirit that he is a child of God. He 
can thus see and know his position before God as a 
saint of God without the first particle of vanity or 
self-praise. He feels through and through his being 
that this sainthood is all God's free gift. And as 
God's gift it is for him to acknowledge it and 
rejoice in it, and not to hide it or disbelieve it. It's 
a false modesty that does not rejoice and be thankful 
for the gift of God. Now, then, we see the dis- 
tinctive character of God's own as compared with the 
world at large. They walk after the Spirit, while the 
world walks after the flesh. They are the compara- 
tively few who have a new spiritual life created in 
them by the indwelling Spirit of God, and who obey 
that life and its laws as against the old carnal life 
now subdued. They are thus fulfillers of God's holy 
law. They practically solve the problem as to who 
shall be saved, when salvation requires the clean 
hands and pure heart, and when without holiness 



246 OBEDIENCE TO GOD'S LAW. 

no man can see the Lord. These poor sinners now 
united to God, with the old nature still clinging to 
them and often tormenting them, are nevertheless the 
beloved children of God — the saints — the righteous 
ones. The world cannot understand this, but God's 
own understand it, and the understanding begins their 
heaven here. 

Brethren, the practical point in this meditation is 
that we, as made able bj the Spirit to obey God's 
holy law, should be ever zealous for that law in all 
our lives. "Watchfulness and prayer to this end should 
mark our days. We can never admire enough the 
beauty of God's law. It is the expression of His own 
perfections. And this Bible contains it. Here we 
find it all. Here is the will of the almighty, the all- 
perfect, the all-loving One, for us to know and do. 
And we are able to do it. All excuse of inability is 
false, because we have the Holy Spirit given us for 
this very purpose to make us holy and able to do 
God's will. We, of course, are not to trust our native 
ability — that is worthless — but we are to trust our 
given ability. We are to use prayer constantly to 
this end. Is not that our failure ? Do we pray with- 
out ceasing ? Do we not practically think we can do 
it alone most of the time and so ignore God's Spirit 
in us ? Isn't that the reason why we fail and fall and 
have such sad experiences? Let us remember that 
we are "walkers after the Spirit." That is the name 
God gives us. Let us live up to it. That means con- 
stant communion with the Spirit in us, and that 
means a life of prayer, which is synonymous with a life 



OBEDIENCE TO GOD'S LAW. 24:7 

of power and a life of peace. It is by looking at our 
high privileges in Christ, as partakers of the Holy 
Spirit, that we shall be made proficient in a holy life. 
But remember a holy life does not mean that bastard 
thing of the Middle Ages which consisted in a long 
face and a peculiar costume and a round of cere- 
monials, but it means a heart loving God and truth 
and righteousness and helping our fellow-men, a heart 
that glories in our Kedeemer and longs to be like 
Him. That's a holy life. So that we may have such 
a life testifying for God, let us take the only way to 
it, the close communion with our blessed Lord and 
Saviour. Remember that we fulfil the righteousness 
of the law not by walking after the law, but by walk- 
ing after the Spirit. They who try to walk after the 
law find it very hard and unsatisfactory, but they who 
walk after the Spirit find the fulfilling of the right- 
eousness of the law their highest joy. And it is that 
fulfilling which glorifies God and convinces our fellow- 
men of God's truth. 



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